Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. It describes his search for 'a practical religion
This powerful novel, Tolstoy’s third major masterpiece, after War and Peace and Anna Karenina, begins with a courtroom drama (the finest in Russian literature) all the more stunning for being based o
Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, the greatest novels ever written, did not emerge from a vacuum. They were preceded by at least twenty prose works of different kinds, some of them maste
TRANSLATED BY LOUISE AND AYLMER MAUDE. Anna is a beautiful, intelligent woman whose passionate affair with the dashing Count Vronsky leads her to ruin. But her story is also about a search for meanin
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 inf
One of Tolstoy’s last published works of fiction, The Devil revolves around the young landowner Yevgeny’s irrepressible lust for Stepanida, a sensual peasant woman. Even when he gets married to a res
Over the last fifteen years of his life, Tolstoy collected and published the maxims of some of the world’s greatest masters of philosophy, religion and literature, adding his own contributions to var
Leo Tolstoy’s most personal novel, Anna Karenina scrutinizes fundamental ethical and theological questions through the tragic story of its eponymous heroine. Anna is desperately pursuing a good, “mor
In order to repay a small debt, the young student Mitya is persuaded by a friend to falsify a bank bond and cash it in. Little does he suspect that this small misdemeanour will have a profound impact
COUNT LEO TOLSTOY (1828-1910) is best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina, commonly regarded as amongst the greatest novels ever written. He also, however, wrote many masterly short stories, an
This trilogy of short novels, taken as a whole, recounts the young narrator’s early life up to his university days, each episode told through the perceptions, points of view and emotions felt by the
Hadji Murat, one of the most feared and venerated mountain chiefs in the Caucasian struggle against the Russians, defects from the Muslim rebels after feuding with his ruling imam, Shamil. Hoping to
‘How truth thickens and deepens when it migrates from didactic fable to the raw experience of a visceral awakening is one of the thrills of Tolstoy’s stories’
Sharon Cameron in her preface to The Kr
THE ACCLAIMED TRANSLATION BY RICHARD PEVEAR AND LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY. „If you’ve never read it, now is the moment. This translation will show that you don’t read War and Peace, you live it”. (The Time
The judge Ivan Ilyich Golovin has spent his life in the pursuit of wealth and status, devoting himself obsessively to work and often neglecting his family in the process. When, after a small accident
When Napoleon invades Russia in 1812 it forever changes those engulfed by the violence. Although told on a panoramic scale, War and Peace explores how the chaos of battle, the horror of death and blo
First published in 1878, Tolstoy's masterpiece tells the story of a woman who seems to have everything: beauty, wealth, popularity and son she adores. Then she meets the impetuous officer Count Vrons
Anna Karenina przybywa do domu swojego brata Stivy, aby zażegnać małżeński konflikt pomiędzy nim a jego żoną. Wtedy to poznaje wojskowego ? Aleksa Wrońskiego. Ich znajomość wkrótce przeradza się w na
Dmitry Andreich Olenin, in the hope of escaping the hollowness of his privilege, joins the army and heads to the Caucasus. There among the foothills, he will meet the Cossacks: a people he considers
A beautiful Penguin Classics clothbound edition of Tolstoy's magnificent epic novel of love, conflict, fate and human life in all its imperfection and grandeur
At a glittering society party in St
‘How truth thickens and deepens when it migrates from didactic fable to the raw experience of a visceral awakening is one of the thrills of Tolstoy’s stories’
Sharon Cameron in her preface to The De
‘How truth thickens and deepens when it migrates from didactic fable to the raw experience of a visceral awakening is one of the thrills of Tolstoy’s stories’
Sharon Cameron in her preface to Hadji
A carefree Russian official has what seems to be a trivial accident...
One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Eac
"War and Peace" is a vast epic centred on Napoleon's war with Russia. While it expresses Tolstoy's view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great novel wi
Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. Tolstoy considered this book to be his firs