The Brothers Karamazov (Modern Library)

The Brothers Karamazov Dostoevskys crowning achievement is a tale of patricide and family rivalry that embodies the moral and spiritual dissolution of an entire society (Russia in the 1870s). It created a national furor comparable only to the excitement stirred by the publication in 1866 of Crime and Punishment. To Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov captured the quintessence of Russian character in all its exaltation compassion and profligacy. Significantly the book was on Tolstoys bedside table when he died. Readers in every language have since accepted Dostoevskys own evaluation of this work and have gone further by proclaiming it one of the few great novels of all ages and countries. "The Brothers Karamazov stands as the culmination of Dostoevskys arthis last longest richest and most capacious book " said The Washington Post Book World. "Nothing is outside Dostoevskys province " observed Virginia Woolf. "Out of Shakespeare there is no more exciting reading."