Constance Garnett

Leo Tolstoy's epic novel about the lives of five aristocratic families in Moscow and St. Petersburg against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century.

Based on a true event, in which a young revolutionary was murdered by his comrades, The Possessed provoked a storm of controversy for its harsh depiction of a ruthless band of Russian intellectuals, atheists, socialists, anarchists, and other radicals who attempt to incite the population of a small provincial town to revolt against the government. In contrast to Dostoevsky's savage portrait of these radicals and the violent ideas that have possessed...

Prince Myshkin finds himself at the center of a violent love triangle in which a notorious woman and a beautiful young girl become rivals for his affections, setting the stage for extortion, scandal, and murder.