The Eternal Husband

A rich and idle man confronts his dead mistress's husband in this psychological novel of duality. Powerful and accessible, it offers a captivating and revealing exploration of love, guilt, and hatred.

From Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, The Eternal Husband and Other Stories brings together five of Dostoevsky’s short masterpieces. Filled with many of the themes and concerns central to his great novels, these short works display the full range of Dostoevsky’s genius. The centerpiece of this collection, the short novel The Eternal Husband, describes the almost surreal meeting of a cuckolded widower and his dead wife’s lover. Dostoevsky’s dark brilliance and satiric vision infuse the other four tales with all-too-human characters. The Eternal Husband and Other Stories is sterling Dostoevsky—a collection of emotional power and uncompromising insight into the human condition.

‘The Eternal Husband’ is a tragicomic novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky about Trusotsky, a widower who discovers that his wife had an affair with an old friend, Velchaninov. The story follows Trusotsky and Velchaninov as they embark on a misadventure to find Trusotsky a new wife while the tension between them grows to a violent climax. ‘The Eternal Husband’ is a critically acclaimed story teeming with romance, betrayal, and death. Dostoevsky examines the role of women in society in this tale, as the female characters are at once both repressed by society but hold power over men due to their charm and apparent virtue. This story portrays corrupt characters exploring an equally corrupt world in which no one is clean, but Dostoevsky’s incredible character work creates sympathy for those perhaps undeserving in a way that only he can. This classic novella is both ironic and melancholy and is recommended for fans of Samuel Beckett or Russian literature in general. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was a famous Russian writer of novels, short stories, and essays. A connoisseur of the troubled human psyche and the relationships between the individuals, Dostoevsky’s oeuvre covers a large area of subjects: politics, religion, social issues, philosophy, and the uncharted realms of the psychological. He is most famous for the novels ‘Crime and Punishment’, ‘The Idiot’, and ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. James Joyce described Dostoevsky as the creator of ‘modern prose’ and his literary legacy is influential to this day as Dostoevsky’s work has been adapted for many movies including ‘The Double’ starring Jesse Eisenberg.

Admirers have praised Fedor Dostoevsky as the Russian Shakespeare, while his critics have slighted his novels as merely cheap amusements. In this critical introduction to Dostoevsky's fiction, the author asks readers to draw their own conclusions about the nineteenth-century Russian writer. Discussing psychological, political, mythical, and philosophical approaches, he guides readers through the range of diverse and even contradictory interpretations of Dostoevsky's rich novels.

The Permanent Husband or The Eternal Husband is a novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The novella's plot revolves around the complicated relationship between Velchaninov and Trusotsky, the husband of his deceased former lover.