[DOSTOEVSKY, FYODOR]. The Possessed. London: William Heinemann, 1913.
First UK edition, first printing of the English translation, by Constance Garnett. Cloth bound, hardcover, octavo (19 x 13 x 4 cm), pp. vii, [1], 637. English text. Bound in publisher's original scarlet cloth, blind-stamped roundel on the front board, and the publisher's logo blind-stamped on the back board, lower page edges un-trimmed, half-title. Printed at the Ballantyne Press, London. Condition: VERY GOOD. Binding tight and secure. Covers clean with very slight spine fading and bumping to spine ends. Interior very well-preserved and without previous ownership markings. Scarce thus.
Notes: Published as Volume III of the Novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, 'The Possessed' is an allegory of the potentially catastrophic consequences of the political and moral nihilism that were becoming prevalent in Russia in the 1860s. A fictional town descends into chaos as it becomes the focal point of an attempted revolution, orchestrated by master conspirator Pyotr Verkhovensky. Constance Clara Garnett was an English translator of nineteenth-century Russian literature. She was the first English translator to render numerous volumes of Anton Chekhov's work into English and the first to translate almost all of Fyodor Dostoevsky's fiction into English. Originally published in Russian between 1871 - 1872 in the Moscow based literary journal "The Russian Messenger". A lovely example, which due to the weight and bulk of the text block and relatively thin binding, makes copies in collectable original condition exceptionally scarce in commerce.
