The Death Of Ivan Ilyich And Other Stories

Description

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.

First Sentence

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.

Subjects

Other Editions

• The Death Of Ivan Ilyich And Other StoriesPenguin Books2008-01-01
• The death of Ivan Ilyitch, and other storiesHeinemann1902-01-01
• The death of Ivan Ilyitch and other storiesWilliam Heinemann1915-01-01
• Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other StoriesPenguin Publishing Group1960-01-01
• Family happiness.New American Library1960-01-01
• The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other StoriesSignet Classics1964-01-01