The Idiot

Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from a Swiss clinic where he was treated for epilepsy, and on the train meets Rogozhin, a passionate merchant's son obsessed with the beautiful Nastasya Filippovna, a woman society regards as 'fallen'. In St Petersburg the prince's honesty and childlike compassion make people call him an idiot. Moved by pity, he offers to marry Nastasya, while he also loves the proud young Aglaya, and he is caught between the two women and his rival, as the story moves towards a terrible night in Rogozhin's house.

Dostoevsky wrote the novel abroad, in 1868 and 1869, trying, as he wrote, to portray 'a positively beautiful man', and he compared his hero to Don Quixote; the prince's descriptions of epilepsy come from his own illness. This translation is by Eva Martin. Myshkin's literary ancestor is Cervantes's Don Quixote, and his brother in spirit is Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) was sentenced to death in 1849 for his part in a radical circle, reprieved at the last moment and sent to hard labour in Siberia, which he described in The House of the Dead.

His great novels, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, turn questions of guilt, faith and freedom into stories; White Nights is a gentle place to start.