Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Idiot Fyodor Dostoevsky

In The Idiot, 27-year-old Prince Lyov Nikolayevich Myshkin returns to Russia after a long absence. He suffers from epilepsy (just like Dostoyevsky himself) and is prone to seizures, though they had been treated with some success in Switzerland by a Dr. Schneider. The Myshkin family line is said to end with him and his cousin, Lizaveta Prokofyevna, who is the wife of Ivan Fyodorovitch Epanchin, and mother to Adelaida, Alexandra, and, lastly, Aglaia, Nastasya Filippovna's rival.