Books with author graf Leo Tolstoy

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 first real attempt at a novel form, and it addresses the very nature of society at all levels,- of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence. It ends tragically, and there is much that evokes despair, yet set beside this is an abounding joy in life's many ephemeral pleasures, and a profusion of comic relief.

In their world frivolous liaisons are commonplace, but Anna and Vronsky’s consuming passion makes them a target for scorn and leads to Anna’s increasing isolation. The heartbreaking trajectory of their relationship contrasts sharply with the colorful swirl of friends and family members who surround them, especially the newlyweds Kitty and Levin, who forge a touching bond as they struggle to make a life together. Quotes from the book:“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”“Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand.”“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”Readers' reviews:“This is world-class literature and a story, albeit an older one, which teaches us much about life. I would highly recommend this book as a gift to any young adult. Yes, it is lengthy but here Tolstoy has yielded us one of the finest tales ever written.” (Patrick W. Crabtree)“This is a surprisingly fast-moving, interesting and easy to read novel. The last of which I'd of never believed could be true before reading it, but you find yourself instantly engrossed in this kind of Russian soap opera, filled with weird and intriguing characters. The most notable theme is the way society overlooked mens' affairs but frowned on womens', this immediately created a bond between myself and Anna, who is an extremely likeable character.” (Emily May - goodreads.com)“Earle, who was from Massachusetts, wrote with fascinating details and anecdotes about old gardens and newer gardens of her era that took inspiration from the past. The many photos are a trove for readers interested in restoring an old garden.” (Boston Globe)

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. With a career spanning almost half a century, Leo Tolstoy penned down some of the worlds greatest and most celebrated works. This edition brings for you his thirty-five best short stories ranging from stories for children, stories for the people, and Russian folk tales to his adaptations from French stories and the ones written for the Jewish pogrom victims in Russia. It includes The Snowstorm (1856), Polikushka (1863), The Prisoner of the Caucasus (1872), Where Love is, There God is Also (1885), Two Old Men (1885), Ivan the Fool (1885), Kholstomír (1885), The Imp and The Crust (1886), The Coffee House of Surat (1893), Master and Man (1895), Father Sergius, Work, Death and Sickness, After the Dance, and Alyosha the Pot (1911), among his other masterpieces. An editorial note precedes each work.

All is quiet in Moscow. The squeak of wheels is seldom heard in the snow-covered street. There are no lights left in the windows and the street lamps have been extinguished. Only the sound of bells, borne over the city from the church towers, suggests the approach of morning. The streets are deserted. At rare intervals a night-cabman's sledge kneads up the snow and sand in the street as the driver makes his way to another corner where he falls asleep while waiting for a fare. An old woman passes by on her way to church, where a few wax candles burn with a red light reflected on the gilt mountings of the icons. Workmen are already getting up after the long winter night and going to their work—but for the gentlefolk it is still evening. From a window in Chevalier's Restaurant a light—illegal at that hour—is still to be seen through a chink in the shutter. At the entrance a carriage, a sledge, and a cabman's sledge, stand close together with their backs to the curbstone. A three-horse sledge from the post-station is there also. A yard-porter muffled up and pinched with cold is sheltering behind the corner of the house. 'And what's the good of all this jawing?' thinks the footman who sits in the hall weary and haggard. 'This always happens when I'm on duty.' From the adjoining room are heard the voices of three young men, sitting there at a table on which are wine and the remains of supper. One, a rather plain, thin, neat little man, sits looking with tired kindly eyes at his friend, who is about to start on a journey. Another, a tall man, lies on a sofa beside a table on which are empty bottles, and plays with his watch-key. A third, wearing a short, fur-lined coat, is pacing up and down the room stopping now and then to crack an almond between his strong, rather thick, but well-tended fingers. He keeps smiling at something and his face and eyes are all aglow. He speaks warmly and gesticulates, but evidently does not find the words he wants and those that occur to him seem to him inadequate to express what has risen to his heart. 'Now I can speak out fully,' said the traveller. 'I don't want to defend myself, but I should like you at least to understand me as I understand myself, and not look at the matter superficially. You say I have treated her badly,' he continued, addressing the man with the kindly eyes who was watching him

One of the most perfect works by the author of War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilych is one of Leo Tolstoy's most celebrated pieces of late fiction. Dealing with the tyranny of the bourgeois niceties, the weakness in the human heart, living without meaning and death. Ivan Ilych Golovin has spent his life chasing after wealth and status to the deliration while ignoring his family. After a minor accident Ivan isn't going to recover and it is clear that he is going to die. Contemplating his life Ivan Ilych realizes that he has lived an empty existence as he finds himself totally alone.

Thomas Mann says that ANNA KARENINA is the greatest novel of society in world literature. This intriguing and provoking story of broken marital relations also presents in great detail Russian manners and customs under the old regime. The story is as real as life itself.More then a century has passed since Tolstoy’s masterpiece appeared and shook Russian society by its unsparing attack of social hypocrisy. The every increasing popularity of ANNA KARENINA bears witness to the impact that this novel continues to make on us and the way we view the world.“Its theme – the simple one of the wife, the husband, and the lover – is treated with a marvelous perception.”—HELLEN REX KELLER

War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It is regarded as one of the central works of world literature. War and Peace and Tolstoy's other major prose work, Anna Karenina (1873–77), are considered Tolstoy's finest literary achievements.The novel charts the history of the French invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version, titled The Year 1805, were serialized in The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867. The novel was first published in its entirety in 1869. Newsweek in 2009 ranked it first in its Top 100 Books. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 20 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.Tolstoy himself said that War and Peace was "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle". Large sections, especially in the later chapters, are philosophical discussion rather than narrative. He also said that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence hesitated to call War and Peace a novel. Instead, he regarded Anna Karenina as his first true novel.

Drawing on the experience of his own struggle to find enlightenment and a deeper spiritual understanding of life, Leo Tolstoy takes us on the final journey towards death with Ivan Ilyich, who, falling victim to an incurable illness, ponders his life in its shallowness and lack of compassion, ultimately wondering about the meaning of it all.At times somber and satirical, Tolstoy s novel raises questions about the way we live and how we should strive even at the end to seek final redemption. It is a powerful masterpiece of psychological exploration and has influenced writers as diverse as Hemingway and Nabokov.This version is translated by Aylmer and Louise Maude.

The last novel of Tolstoy’s illustrious career, The Resurrection concerns the moral bankruptcy of organized religion and the inequitable enforcement of society’s laws. It tells the story of Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, a Russian nobleman who visits a former lover in a Siberian prison. Finding the prison and its methods senseless and barbaric, Nekhlyudov comes to realize that social order is underwritten by unimaginable horror and oppression.

This book contains the complete novels and novellas of Leo Tolstoy in the chronological order of their original publication. - Childhood - Boyhood - Youth - The Cossacks - War and Peace - Father Sergius - Anna Karenina - Ivan the Fool - Evil allures, but good endures - Where Love is, There God is Also - The Death of Ivan Ilych - The Imp and the Crust - An Old Acquaintance - The Young Tsar - Master and Man - Esarhaddon, King of Assyria - Work, Death, and Sickness - There are No Guilty People - Little Girls Wiser Than Men

"God Sees the Truth, But Waits" (Russian: "Бог правду видит, да не скоро скажет", "Bog pravdu vidit da ne skoro skazhet") is a short story by Russian author Leo Tolstoy first published in 1872. The story, about a man sent to prison for a murder he didn't commit, takes the form of a parable of forgiveness. English translations were also published under titles "The Confessed Crime" and "Exiled to Siberia". The concept of the story of a man wrongfully accused of murder and banished to Siberia also appears in one of Tolstoy's previous works, War and Peace, during a philosophical discussion between two characters who relate the story and argue how the protagonist of their story deals with injustice and fate.