The illegitimate son of a landowner, Arkady Dolgoruky was raised by foster parents and tutors, and has scarcely ever seen his father, Versilov, and his mother, Versilov’s peasant common-law wife. Arkady goes to Petersburg to meet this “accidental family” and to confront the father who dominates his imagination and whom he both disdains and longs to impress. Having sewn into his coat a document that he believes gives him power over others, Arkady proceeds with an irrepressible youthful volatility that withstands blunders and humiliations at every turn.
Dostoevsky masterfully depicts adolescence as a state of uncertainty, ignorance, and incompleteness, but also of richness and exuberance, in which everything is still possible. His tale of a youth finding his way in the disorder of Russian society in the 1870s is a high and serious comedy that borders on both farce and tragedy.
The Adolescent (originally published in English as A Raw Youth) is markedly different in tone from Dostoevsky’s other masterpieces. It is told from the point of view of the nineteen-year-old narrator, whose immaturity, freshness, and naïveté are unforgettably reflected in his narrative voice.
This superb new translation—never before published—of one of Dostoevsky’s major novels comes from the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
“In the variety of its happenings, the assortment of its characters, the intensity of its passions, and the effect of its conflicts,
The Adolescent is the most captivating of all Dostoevsky’s novels.” –Konstantin Mochulsky, author of
Dostoevsky: His Life and WorkPraise for previous translations by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, winners of the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize:
The Brothers Karamazov
“One finally gets the musical whole of Dostoevsky’s original.” –
New York Times Book ReviewCrime and Punishment
“The best [translation] currently available…An especially faithful re-creation…with a coiled-spring kinetic energy… Don’t miss it.” –
Washington Post Book World“The original’s force and frightening immediacy is captured…The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation will become the standard version.” –
Chicago Tribune Demons
“The merit in this edition of
Demons resides in the technical virtuosity of the translators…They capture the feverishly intense, personal explosions of activity and emotion that manifest themselves in Russian life.” –
New York Times Book Review With an Introduction by Richard Pevear
