The Idiot/Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A classic by a Russian master Prince Myshkin, the idiot, is an almost comically innocent Christ figure in a land of sinners, one whose faith in beauty contrasts sharply with that of his society's. About the Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), one of nineteenth-century Russia's greatest novelists, spent four years in a convict prison in Siberia, after which he was obliged to enlist in the army. In later years his penchant for gambling sent him deeply into debt. Most of his important works were written after 1864, including Notes from Underground , Crime and Punishment , The Idiot , and The Brothers Karamazov, all available from Penguin Classics.