29 h 2 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 713 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 713 pagesAbout this book
What happens when the promise of a better world becomes a reason to tear everything apart?
In a quiet provincial town, Pyotr Verkhovensky gathers conspirators and works to stir up chaos. Nikolai Stavrogin, a magnetic aristocrat with a scandalous past, draws people toward him while seeming unable to believe in anything. In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed: Or, The Devils, private troubles feed a growing political fever.
Around them stand an aging liberal scholar, a strong-willed widow, and people wrestling with faith and freedom. Ivan Shatov clings to belief after his radical past; Aleksei Kirillov pursues an extreme argument about God. Through gossip, arguments, and gathering suspense, Dostoyevsky asks what happens when conviction loses touch with care for other people.
What you’ll discover
- The machinery of extremism Watch Pyotr turn restless ideas into a conspiracy that threatens the town around him.
- A troubling human magnet Meet Stavrogin, whose charm draws others close while his lack of belief keeps him apart.
- Faith under pressure Follow Shatov and Kirillov into arguments where belief and freedom become intensely personal.
- Dark comedy and dread Enter a crowded world where vanity, gossip, and grand ideals sit beside growing danger.
- Pride beneath the politics Look beyond political slogans to the shame, boredom, and longing that shape these lives.
Is it for you?
This book suits readers who like big Russian novels, arguments about God and politics, and dark comedy mixed with suspense. It also rewards anyone curious about how extremist movements form. If you want a short, fast, tidy plot, it may feel crowded and slow.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A gentle old liberal and his patroness
- The son returns with a dark reputation
- Pyotr Verkhovensky arrives with a scheme
- Shatov and the faith in the Russian people
- Kirillov and the logic of freedom
- A town in fever: scandal, fêtes and fires
- Ideas become method: the quintet and Shigalyov
- What the novel is really about: possession
- How it is told, and how it has lasted
Who’s who
- Stepan Trofimovich VerkhovenskyAn aging scholar and talker, long supported by Varvara, who loves fine ideals and his own image and has little sense of what they cost.
- Varvara Petrovna StavroginaA rich, strong-willed widow who rules her household and her old friend Stepan, and who wants a good life and a great name for her son.
- Nikolai StavroginA handsome, gifted aristocrat with a scandalous past, admired by many and bound to none, who seems unable to believe in anything.
- Pyotr VerkhovenskyStepan's restless son, a charming and ruthless organizer who gathers local conspirators and wants to stir up chaos in the province.
- Ivan ShatovA tense former radical who now clings to a passionate faith in the Russian people and their God, and who is torn by his past.
- Aleksei KirillovA gentle engineer who follows an extreme argument about freedom and God to its limit, and who lives by that logic with calm joy.
- Liza TushinaA proud, restless young woman, drawn to Stavrogin with a feeling she cannot name or control.
- Marya LebyadkinaA lame, dreamy woman with a strange link to Stavrogin, who lives with her drunken brother and speaks in riddles.
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- Large print hardcover
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The Possessed: Or, The Devils
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky· 1871
Political radicals draw a provincial town into conspiracy and violence.
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Language: Français
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
A gentle old liberal and his patroness
The story is told by a local man, Anton Lavrentyevich G-v, who writes as a chronicler of events in his own town. He begins with Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, a scholar who likes to think of himself as a persecuted liberal from the 1840s. Ever since, he has lived as a kind of ornament in the house of Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina, a rich and commanding widow. She manages his money, his moods and his friendships.
Stepan is vain, tearful and charming. He speaks of beauty and humanity, and he loves to be seen as a martyr, though he has done little to earn the title. He plays cards, drinks champagne and quarrels with Varvara in a long friendship that is half marriage and half comedy. The narrator treats him with a mix of affection and mockery.
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The author
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1821–1881 · Russian novelist
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian novelist born in Moscow in 1821. He lived in Saint Petersburg and spent years in Siberia after his arrest in 1849. He wrote Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1868–1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880). He died in Saint Petersburg in 1881.
“And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them.”
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What is The Possessed about?
It follows a provincial Russian town in the 1860s where a young schemer, a troubled aristocrat and several believers and doubters collide. The novel shows how radical ideas about God, freedom and power can take over people and a community.
Why is it also called Demons or The Devils?
The Russian title means devils or demons. Dostoyevsky took it from a Gospel scene in Luke where devils leave a sick man and enter pigs. He uses it to picture ideas that possess a person or a country.
Is The Possessed based on a true story?
Partly. Dostoyevsky drew on the 1869 case of Sergei Nechaev, a Russian revolutionary whose group turned on one of its own members. He set a fictional version in a provincial town. The book was published in 1871 and 1872.
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