The Idiot (AmazonClassics Edition) characters

Also known as Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin

Appears from the start

An impoverished twenty-six-year-old prince returning to Russia after several years of treatment for epilepsy in Switzerland. Open, compassionate, and strikingly free of social calculation, he is often taken for a fool even when he understands the pain and vanity around him with unusual clarity.

Also known as Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin

Appears from the start

A merchant's son whom Myshkin meets on the train to Saint Petersburg. He is returning after inheriting a large fortune and speaks with consuming intensity about Nastasya Filippovna, for whom he is prepared to spend recklessly.

Appears from the start

A talkative minor official who meets Myshkin and Rogozhin on the train. Quick to gather information and attach himself to wealthy or useful people, he shifts between comic servility, shrewd observation, and occasional concern for others.

Also known as General Ivan Fyodorovich Yepanchin

First appears in chapter 2

A prosperous general and distant relation of Myshkin's. Practical and socially ambitious, he receives the unknown prince cautiously and is surprised by his intelligence and candor.

Also known as Ganya

First appears in chapter 2

General Yepanchin's secretary, a clever and proud young man from a financially strained family. He is considering a marriage to Nastasya Filippovna that could bring him money and advancement, though the arrangement wounds his pride and divides his household.

Also known as Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova

First appears in chapter 3

A celebrated and socially vulnerable young woman whose portrait immediately affects Myshkin. Orphaned and raised under Totsky's control, she is being urged toward marriage with Ganya while wealthy men negotiate her future around a large payment.

First appears in chapter 4

General Yepanchin's forceful wife and mother of three daughters. She is impulsive, proud of her family, and intrigued by Myshkin's apparent innocence, partly because they share the Myshkin family name.

First appears in chapter 4

The youngest Yepanchin daughter. Intelligent, beautiful, and guarded behind teasing behavior, she is curious about Myshkin but resists being interpreted or managed by her family.

First appears in chapter 4

A wealthy landowner who became Nastasya Filippovna's guardian after her father's death and shaped her upbringing for his own benefit. He now wants to free himself for a respectable marriage and supports a financial arrangement intended to marry her to Ganya.

First appears in chapter 7

Ganya's adolescent brother, friendly, direct, and less constrained by status than the adults around him. He takes quickly to Myshkin and becomes a dependable messenger and companion.

First appears in chapter 8

Ganya and Kolya's father, a retired general who tells grandiose and frequently impossible stories about his past. His household treats his fabrications with weary familiarity, while Myshkin responds without humiliating him.

First appears in chapter 24

A gravely ill young man in Kolya's circle who knows he has little time left. Proud, intellectually combative, and desperate to retain control over how others see him, he reacts sharply to pity and to Myshkin's compassion.

Also known as Evgeny Pavlovich

First appears in chapter 27

A wealthy and polished young officer moving in the Yepanchins' social circle. He is regarded as a suitable match for Aglaya and observes Myshkin with a mixture of skepticism, intelligence, and growing sympathy.