Books by Leo Tolstoy

Serving on a jury at the trial of a prostitute arrested for murder, Prince Nekhlyudov is horrified to discover that the accused is a woman he had once loved, seduced and then abandoned when she was a young servant girl. Racked with guilt at realizing he was the cause of her ruin, he determines to appeal for her release or give up his own way of life and follow her. Conceived on an epic scale, Resurrection portrays a vast panorama of Russian life, taking us from the underworld of prison cells and warders to the palaces of countesses. It is also an angry denunciation of government, the upper classes, the judicial system and the Church, and a highly personal statement of Tolstoy's belief in human redemption.

1910. Anna Karenina and War and Peace have made Leo Tolstoy the world's most famous author. But fame comes at a price. In the tumultuous final year of his life, Tolstoy is desperate to find respite, so leaves his large family and the hounding press behind and heads into the wilderness. Too ill to venture beyond the tiny station of Astapovo, he believes his last days will pass in isolation. But as we learn through the journals of those closest to him, the battle for Tolstoy's soul will not be a peaceful one. Jay Parini introduces, translates and edits this collection of Tolstoy's autobiographical writing, diaries, and letters related to the last year of Tolstoy's life published to coincide with the 2009 film of Parini's novel The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year.

Leo Tolstoy's short works, like his novels, show readers his narrative genius, keen observation, and historical acumen-albeit on a smaller scale.

This translation will show that you don't read War and Peace, you live it' The TimesTolstoy's enthralling epic depicts Russia's war with Napoleon and its effects on the lives of those caught up in the conflict.

Classic / British EnglishAnna Karenina, one of world literatures greatest novels, tells the story of a beautiful young woman who is unhappily married to a man much older than herself. When she falls in love with a handsome young soldier, life suddenly seems wonderful. But real happiness is not so easily found ...

These four novellas, each unique in form, show Tolstoy at his creative height. Written over a period of almost fifty years, they reflect his changing views on art and sexuality, women and marriage, nationalism and ethnicity, war and empire, and the central Tolstoyan theme of love. This edition uses the famous and superior Maude translations. Contains: Family Happiness; The Kreutzer Sonata; The Cossacks; Hadji Mur'ad.

'The Kreutzer Sonata' is the self-lacerating confession of a man consumed by sexual jealousy and eaten up by shame and eventually driven to murder his wife. The story caused a sensation when it first appeared and Tolstoy's wife was appalled that he had drawn on their own experiences together to create a scathing indictment of marriage. 'The Devil', centring on a young man torn between his passion for a peasant girl and his respectable life with his loving wife, also illustrates the impossibility of pure love. 'The Forged Coupon' shows how an act of corruption can spiral out of control, and 'After the Ball' examines the abuse of power. Written during a time of spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, these late stories reflect a world of moral uncertainties.

"In the Days of Serfdom" and Other Stories presents in miniature themes developed in Tolstoy's longer works. All the stories are compelling reading, but because of their general unavailability, they have been ignored by contemporary scholars and teachers.

Offers an integration of the four biblical Gospels into a single account of the life of Jesus. This title explains that the author's goal is a solution to 'the problem of life', not an answer to theological or historical questions. It focuses on the words and teachings of Jesus, what the author regarded as the Church's distortions.

During his decades of world fame as a novelist, Tolstoy also wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These works culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Impassioned and iconoclastic, this powerfully influential work both criticizes the elitist nature of art in nineteenth-century Western society, and rejects the idea that its sole purpose should be the creation of beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire and Wagner are all vigorously condemned, as Tolstoy explores what he believes to be the spiritual role of the artist - arguing that true art must work with religion and science as a force for the advancement of mankind.

Tolstoy wrote many masterly short stories, and this volume contains four of the longest and best in distinguished translations that have stood the test of time.

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.

Reissued in new trade paperback format and design.

These short works, ranging from Tolstoy's earliest tales to the brilliant title story, are rich in the insights and passion that characterize all of his explorations in love, war, courage, and civilization.

In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Tolstoy joined the Russian army and travelled to the Caucasus as a soldier. The four years that followed were among the most significant in his life, and deeply influenced the stories collected here. Begun in 1852 but unfinished for a decade, The Cossacks describes the experiences of Olenin, a young cultured Russian who comes to despise civilization after spending time with the wild Cossack people. Sevastopol Sketches, based on Tolstoy's own experiences of the siege of Sevastopol in 1854-55, is a compelling consideration of the nature of war, while Hadji Murat, written towards the end of his life, returns to the Caucasus of Tolstoy's youth to explore the life of a great leader torn apart by a conflict of loyalties. Written at the end of the nineteenth century, it is amongst the last and greatest of Tolstoy's shorter works.