Ivan Ilyich has always led a proper life. Only as he dies does he begin to ask what that meant. The title story of this collection follows Ivan Ilyich, a successful official battling a mysterious illness. His family visit his bedside, their faces masks of concern. His colleagues pay their respects but think only of the advantages created by his death. As Ivan’s suffering deepens, the respectable life he has built begins to seem hollow, and the truth of death becomes impossible to avoid. It is one of the masterpieces of Tolstoy’s late fiction. The 10 other stories in this collection include ‘The Kreutzer Sonata’, ‘The Devil’ and ‘Hadji Murat’, and range across military captivity, jealousy, spiritual crisis, peasant life and moral awakening. These are stories written with the force of final questions. Tolstoy looks at illness, jealousy, violence and faith not as abstractions, but as pressures that reveal what his characters have built their lives upon. 'As good as anything Tolstoy ever wrote... Self-assured, vital, unforgettable' Guardian

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2010-04-13
Språk:Engelska
Filformat:EPUB
Kopieringsskydd:LCP
ISBN:9781407073965
Förlag:Vintage Publishing
Översättare:Larissa Volokhonsky, Richard Pevear

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Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia on 9 September 1828. In 1852 he published his first work, the autobiographical Childhood. He served in the army during the Crimean War and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6) are based on his experiences. His two most popular masterpieces are War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1875-8). He died in 20 November 1910.

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"As good as anything Tolstoy ever wrote... Self-assured, vital, unforgettable" Guardian "The simplicity and power of this novella, the story of the terrible encroachment of death on a shallow man spiritually unprepared for it, has staggered millions" Sunday Telegraph "I don't read Russian, but I think Tolstoy's writing comes over whatever translation you read...he wrote the great, terrible story The Death of Ivan Illyich" -- Redmond O'Hanlon Independent "An indubitable masterpiece" -- Yann Martel "For me, the best insight into the process of dying comes from Leo Tolstoy in his short story, The Death of Ivan Ilych, which examines the life and death of the most ordinary man" -- Oliver James Mail on Sunday