Stavrogin's Confession and The Plan of The Life of a Great Sinner / With Introductory and Explanatory Notes - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

TRANSLATED BY

S. S. KOTELIANSKY AND VIRGINIA WOOLF

PUBLISHED BY LEONARD & VIRGINIA WOOLF AT

THE HOGARTH PRESS, PARADISE ROAD, RICHMOND

1922

TRANSLATORS’ NOTE

The Russian Government has recently published a small paper-covered book containing Stavrogin’s Confession, unpublished chapters of Dostoevsky’s novel The Possessed, and Dostoevsky’s plan or sketch of a novel which he never actually wrote but which he called The Life of a Great Sinner. The circumstances in which these MSS. were discovered are described in the note of the Russian Government which we give below. Our translation of Stavrogin’s Confession and of the plan is from the text as published by the Russian Government. We have added translations of introductory or explanatory notes upon the two MSS. by V. Friche, V. Komarovich, and N. Brodsky. The notes by Friche and Komarovich are given in the book published by the Russian Government, that by M. Komarovich appeared in Builoe (No. 18, 1922).