The Devils

(The Possessed)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England · Penguin Books · 1971

Also known as *Demons* or *The Devils*, this is Dostoyevsky’s most political novel. Though critical of the left-wing revolutionaries, split as they often were into disparate factions and cells the author also tacitly rebukes the conservative elite for failing to come to terms with the high levels of disaffection in the country, a stance that would ultimately lead to their downfall.