The Brothers Karamazov

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The Brothers Karamazov, the culmination of Dostoyevsky's work, was completed in 1880, shortly before his death. A portrait of his contemporary Russian society in the turbulent 1870s, the novel intoduces Fyodor Karamazov, a mean and disreputable landowner, and his three legitimate sons: Dmitry, a profligate army officer; Ivan, a writer with revolutionary ideas; and Alexy, a religious novice. In the presence of the monk Zossima, they meet to resolve a family dispute. A tense and magnificent story unfolds through these characters, a drama of parricide and fraternal jealousy which profoundly involves questions of anarchism, atheism and the existence of God. As an artist and as a great and fearless thinker, Dostoyevsky triumphantly fulfills his aim, as recorded in his diary, to find the man in man. The cover shows a detail from Convicted by V.Y. Makovsky. (back cover)