Only beauty can save the world, proclaims the hero of The Idiot, perhaps Dostoevsky's most personal and intense work of fiction. But in the brutally materialistic world of late nineteenth-century Petersburg, infested with greed and vulgarity, Prince Myshkin's naive beliefs can only be the subject of mockery and ultimately lead to failure and tragedy. Populated by an unforgettable cast of characters that covers the entire gamut of Russian society — from the arrogant rich merchant's son Rogozhin and the beautiful but wanton Nastasya Filippovna to the student Kirillov, who aspires to become the man-God by killing himself — Dostoevsky's masterpiece, brilliantly captured in this new translation by Ignat Avsey, is a book that leaves a permanent mark on its readers' minds.