The Possessed (also known as Demons or Devils, 1872) is Dostoyevsky’s fierce, prophetic novel about a group of radical revolutionaries in a provincial Russian town, led by the mesmerizing and destructive Stavrogin and the ideological fanatic Pyotr Verkhovensky. Inspired by a real political murder, it is one of literature’s most penetrating portraits of nihilism and ideological possession.
Remarkably prescient about the dangers of revolutionary extremism, this novel feels as urgent today as when it was written. Download the free EPUB to read Dostoyevsky at his most politically charged and psychologically complex.