Publisher's Synopsis
The Possessed is an anti-nihilistic novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first published in the journal The Russian Messenger in 1871-2. It is the third of the four great novels written by Dostoyevsky after his return from Siberian exile, the others being Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Demons is a social and political satire, a psychological drama, and large scale tragedy. Joyce Carol Oates has described it as "Dostoevsky's most confused and violent novel, and his most satisfyingly 'tragic' work." According to Ronald Hingley, it is Dostoyevsky's "greatest onslaught on Nihilism," and "one of humanity's most impressive achievements-perhaps even its supreme achievement-in the art of prose fiction."
