The Eternal Husband - Softcover

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847496563 ISBN 13: 9781847496560

Publisher: Alma Classics, 2018

Synopsis

During a stifling St Petersburg summer, the rich landowner Velchaninov is haunted by the figure of a man he keeps glimpsing in the street. When he receives a surprise visit from him late at night, he realizes he is an old friend, Trusotsky, whose late wife, Natalya, was his secret lover. As the two men renew their acquaintance, Velchaninov becomes aware that Trusotsky's child is, in fact, his own daughter. From then on, the destinies of the two old friends become intertwined as they engage – at turns repelled and attracted by each other – in a dangerous game of cat and mouse that will lead to a final dramatic confrontation.

Compelling, gripping, darkly humorous, The Eternal Husband – composed by the author at the peak of his writing powers, between The Idiot and Devils, and described by Dostoevsky's biographer Joseph Frank as “a small masterpiece” – shows Dostoevsky at his best as a ruthless dissector of the quirks and foibles of the human character.

About this title

From the Back Cover

DOSTOEVSKY'S SHORT MASTERPIECES BROUGHT TOGETHER IN A BRILLIANT NEW TRANSLATION

The Eternal Husband and Other Stories brings together five of Dostoevsky's short masterpieces rendered into English by two of the most celebrated Dostoevsky translators of our time. Filled with many of the themes and concerns central to his great novels, these short works display the full range of his genius. The centerpiece of the collection, the short novel The Eternal Husband, describes the almost surreal meeting of a cuckolded widower and his dead wife's lover. Dostoevsky's dark brilliance and satiric vision infuse the other four tales with all-too-human characters, including a government official who shows up uninvited at an underling's wedding to prove his humanity; a self-deceiving narrator who struggles futilely to understand his wife's suicide; and a hack writer who attends a funeral and ends up talking with the dead. The Eternal Husband and Other Stories is sterling Dostoevsky -- a collection of emotional power and an uncompromising insight into the human condition.

From the Inside Flap

ece of this collection , "The Eternal Husband" (1890) is one of Dostoevsky's most perfect works. Classical in form, it presents his most profound exploration of mimetic rivalry and the duality of human consciousness. Told from the point of view of a rich and idle man who is confronted by a younger rival, the husband of his former, and now deceased, mistress, the story portrays the interchanging hatred and love of the two men.
Along with "The Eternal Husband" is "A Nasty Anecdote" (1862), a satire on the "reform period of Russia," which portrays a high-ranking official who is convinced that "humaneness" will unite all people in a regenerated society. The other three stories, "Bobok" (1873), "The Meek One" (1876) and "The Dream of A Ridiculous Man" (1877), are taken from The Diary of a Writer, which Dostoevsky published between the completion of Demons and The Brothers Karamazov.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alma Classics
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1847496563
• ISBN 13: 9781847496560
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224