Idiot[The Idiot] is at once one of Dostoevsky’s most compelling, confusing, difficult, and mystical novels, and arguably the work that was dearest to its author. “All those who have spoken of it as my best work,” wrote Dostoevsky in February 1877, “have something special in their mental formation that has always struck and pleased me.” Dostoevsky began work on The Idiot in the autumn of 1867. His letters and notebooks reveal the tortuous genesis of the novel. Published in serial form in 1868 in Russkii vestnik [The Russian Messenger], the novel embodies Dostoevsky’s most successful attempt to depict “the positively beautiful person”…
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Citation: Brower, Derek. "Idiot". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=554, accessed 24 November 2024.]
