Demons (Readings Classics)

Set in a provincial Russian town, Demons (also known as The Devils and The Possessed), follows a circle of revolutionaries led by Pyotr Verkhovensky, a cunning agitator who orchestrates a campaign of subversion. Using lies, blackmail, and violence, Pyotr seeks to incite rebellion, manipulating the troubled intellectual Stavrogin-a man torn between nihílism and a tormented conscience. As the group's influence grows, a series of increasingly disturbing events unfolds: secret meetings, political conspiracies, and senseless acts of destruction. The town descends into madness, its people either complicit or powerless. When a brutal murder shatters the already fraying social order, the conspirators' true motives begin to unravel. Now, with suspicion rising and the revolution veering out of control, Stavrogin must decide where he stands-before everything ignites. One of Dostoyevsky's most politically charged works, Demons is both a chilling warning and a masterful literary achievement that remains startlingly relevant in its portrayal of ideology run amok.