Here are some of Tolstoy's extraordinary short stories, from -The Death of Ivan Ilyich—in a masterly new translation-to -The Raid,- -The Wood-felling,- -Three Deaths,- -Polikushka,- -After the Ball,- and -The Forged Coupon,- all gripping and eloquent lessons on two of Tolstoy's most persistent themes: life and death. More experimental than his novels, Tolstoy's stories are essential reading for anyone interested in his development as one of the major writers and thinkers of his time.
As Ivan Ilyich lies dying he begins to re-evaluate his life, searching for meaning that will make sense of his sufferings. In "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and the other works in this volume, Tolstoy conjures characters who, tested to the limit, reveal glorious and unexpected reserves of courage, or baseness of a near inhuman kind. Two vivid parables and "The Forged Coupon", a tale of criminality, explore class relations after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the connection between an ethical life and worldly issues. In "Master and Workman" Tolstoy creates one of his most gripping dramas about human relationships put to the test in an extreme situation. "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is an existential masterpiece, a biting satire that recounts with extraordinary power the final illness and death of a bourgeois lawyer. In his Introduction Andrew Kahn explores Tolstoy's moral concerns and the stylistic features of these late stories, sensitively translated by Nicolas Pasternak Slater. - Back cover.

Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness, The Kreutzer Sonata & Master and Man

Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910, Richard Pevear (translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (translator), David Goldfarb, Anthony Briggs

With an afterword by David Magarshack

[New York]: New American Library

Obsidian Mysteries

Signet Classics

Signet/ N A L

Signet classic, CQ 507, New York, ©1960

United States, United States of America

Signet classic, CD13, New York, 1960

later printing, PT, 1960

obscured text on back cover

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?
This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.

Combining Detailed Physical Description With Perceptive Psychological Insight, Leo Tolstoy Realistically Sweeps Aside The Sham Of Surface Appearances To Lay Bare Man's Intimates Gestures, Acts, And Thoughts. Family Happiness -- The Death Of Ivan Illych -- The Kreutzer Sonata -- Master And Man -- Afterword. With An Afterword By David Magarshack.

304 pages ; 19 cm
Combining detailed physical description with perceptive psychological insight, Leo Tolstoy realistically sweeps aside the sham of surface appearances to lay bare man's intimates gestures, acts, and thoughts
Includes bibliographical refereences (page 294)
APPE gift

WE WERE in mourning for my mother, who had died in the autumn, and I spent all that winter alone in the country with Katya and Sonya.

2023-06-28