Excerpt: "If any one wishes to form the fullest estimate of the real character and influence of the great man whose name is prefixed to these remarks, he will not find it in his novels, splendid as they are, or in his ethical views, clearly and finely as they are conceived and expanded. He will find it best expressed in the news that has recently come from Canada, that a sect of Russian Christian anarchists has turned all its animals loose, on the...

"The Kreutzer Sonata" portrays an intense conflict between sexual desire and moral constraint. "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" is a simple, moving tale of peasant life with a moral lesson; the hero of "The Death of Ivan Ilych," after a lifetime of struggle, finds faith and love only as he faces death. Explanatory footnotes.

A son was born to a poor peasant. He rejoiced and went to a neighbor to ask him to stand as godfather to the boy. The neighbor refused. He did not want to be godfather to a poor man's son. So the peasant went to another neighbor and he, too, refused. He walked from house to house, but could find no one who would be godfather to his son, so he set out to another village.

Bartlett draws extensively on key Russian sources, including much fascinating new material made available since the collapse of the Soviet Union. She sheds light on Tolstoy's remarkable journey from callow youth to writer to prophet; discusses his troubled relationship with his wife, Sonya, a subject long neglected; and vividly evokes the Russian landscapes Tolstoy so loved. Above all, she gives us an eloquent portrait of the brilliant, maddening,...

The Kreutzer Sonata, one of the most controversial novels written by Leo Tolstoy. It was named after Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata and attracted immediate attention of censors on both sides of the Atlantic when it first appeared. The narrative follows the main character, Pozdnyshev who relates the events leading up to his killing his wife.

"In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the reader through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for twenty years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program. Paired with stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, these essays are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. Saunders approaches...

Leo Tolstoy began his trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, in his early twenties. Although he would, in his old age, famously dismiss it as an 'awkward mixture of fact and fiction', generations of readers have not agreed, finding the novel to be a charming and insightful portrait of inner growth against the background of a world described with extraordinary clarity, grace and colour. Evident too in its brilliant account of a young person's emerging...

This book is based on the true life of Henry Stuart. When the 67-year-old former professor finds out he is dying of tuberculosis, he vows to "learn in solitude how to save myself." He sets off for Fairhope, Alabama, with only the writings of his beloved Tolstoy for company. There, the barefoot poet builds himself a small hut and slowly becomes an inspiration for the rest of the utopian town. When his last few months become his last few years, Henry's...

In Tolstoy's timeless epic of love and loss, a circle of aristocrats finds their glittering world crumbling as war threatens imperial Russia. Set during the years of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, War and Peace follows the changing fortunes of brooding hero Prince Andrej, his bookish friend Pierre, and the spirited but nav̐e Natasha. As Napoleon₂s armies menace their privileged lives, the horrors of the battlefield reach into the elegant ballrooms...