You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
John Bayley concentrates in this short introductory study on Tolstoy's two great works and the ancillary texts and tales that relate to them.
Language & linguistics.
Childhood (1852) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy. Published at the beginning of his career as a leading Russian author of his generation, Childhood is the first in a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels tracing Nikolenka’s journey from innocence to experience. As a record of the past, a nostalgic reminder of a lost world, Childhood is one of Tolstoy’s most personal works, and yet his prose shows signs of the universal religious and philosophical themes that would inspire such masterpieces as War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). A story of life and death, love and grief, Childhood is an invaluable treasure of Russian literature. “How beautiful Mamma’s face was when she smiled! ...
Originally published in 1885, What I Believe is part of series of books by novelist Leo Tolstoy that outline his personal interpretation of Christian theology. After a midlife crisis at age 50, he began to believe in the moral teachings of Christianity, while rejecting mysticism and organized religion. He believed that pacifism and poverty were the paths to enlightenment. His precepts of nonviolence even influenced Mohandas Gandhi. Students of religion, political science, and literature alike will gain new understanding from the ideas presented in this book. Students of literature will get to understand more deeply one of the greatest novelist in history, while those interested in religion and politics can see how Tolstoy's philosophy came to influence the world at large. Russian writer COUNT LEV ("LEO") NIKOLAYEVICH TOLSTOY (1828-1910) is best known for his novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877).
Reproduction of the original: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoi
Written over a period of more than half a century, Tolstoy's enchanting short stories and novellas reflect every aspect of his developing art and outlook. Volume 1 of the Everyman Collected Shorter Fiction is dominated by the characteristic experiences of his early life as soldier, land-owner, husband and father, the life which shaped Anna Karenina and War and Peace. It also includes several short fables which point to his later preoccupation with the religious life. Volume 2 reveals how these spiritual intimations flowered into a series of extraordinary late masterpieces which equal anything in the earlier novels for intensity and power. Readers of The Death of Ivan Ilych, The Kreutzer Sonata, Father Sergius, Master and Man and Hadji Murad will recognize the brilliant younger novelist, now transfigured by his passionate quest for salvation and forgiveness.
Written over a period of more than half a century, Leo Tolstoy’s stories reflect every aspect of his art and personality. They cover his experiences as a soldier in the Caucasus, his married life, his passionate interest in the peasantry, his cult of truth and simplicity, and his growing preoccupation with religion. The stories in Volume 1 of the Collected Shorter Fiction date from the period in which the young Tolstoy wrote Anna Karenina and War and Peace. Ranging from brief, masterfully sketches of military life such as “The Wood-Felling” to novellas like Family Happiness, an uneasy imagining of the idyllic possibilities of marriage by the not-yet-married writer, all feature Tolstoy’s characteristically lavish deployment of detail, shrewd observation, and imaginative power.
Childhood (1852) is the first novel of the Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy. The work was published when Tolstoy twenty-three and introduced a new form of writing to Russian literature....