Other editions of book Boyhood

Excerpt from Boyhood: A StoryPatronymic. 1 Russian style is behind English twelve days, so that August 12 is August 24 in England.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

From Boyhood: “Kerr has said that every attachment has two sides: one loves, and the other allows himself to be loved; one kisses, and the other surrenders his cheek. That is perfectly true. In the case of our own attachment it was I who kissed, and Dimitri who surrendered his cheek—though he, in his turn, was ready to pay me a similar salute. We loved equally because we knew and appreciated each other thoroughly, but this did not prevent him from exercising an influence over me, nor myself from rendering him adoration.” ..........Leo Tolstoy, the celebrated author of the 1300-page War and Peace and 800-page Anna Karenina, wasn’t always so lengthy in his prose. He published Boyhood, which is fewer than one-hundred pages, in 1854 at the age of twenty-six. Boyhood is the middle part of a semi-autobiographical trilogy that began with the publication of Childhood in 1852 and concluded with Youth in 1856. Readers, critics, and psychologists alike generally consider the middle book the most intriguing of the three, for Childhood lacks a compelling storyline and Youth embraces a sentimentalism that led Tolstoy to later reject it and cancel his plans to pen a fourth installment. Although the three books were published separately and meant to be stand-alone volumes, today they are often combined into a single edition. This is somewhat unfortunate, for readers must plod through the first book to get to the riches of the second, only to be let down by the third. Read in its own right, Boyhood stands as the best example of the richness of Tolstoy’s early writing. It is a fitting introduction to Tolstoy for readers who are put off by the challenge of tackling his longer works, but it is also a must-read for fans of Tolstoy who have conquered the paperweights and door stops. Boyhood is a charming, insightful narrative that perfectly captures the jumbled emotions of those middle years of growing up...........Watersgreen House is an independent international book publisher with editorial staff in the UK and USA. One of our aims at Watersgreen House is to showcase same-sex affection in works by important gay and bisexual authors in ways which were not possible at the time the books were originally published. We also publish nonfiction, including textbooks, as well as contemporary fiction that is literary, unusual, and provocative. watersgreen.wix.com/watersgreenhouse

Boyhood (1854) is the second novel in Leo Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy, following Childhood and followed by Youth. The novel was first published in the Russian literary journal Sovremennik in 1854 and contains the following excerpt: Again two carriages stood at the front door of the house at Petrovskoe. In one of them sat Mimi, the two girls, and their maid, with the bailiff, Jakoff, on the box, while in the other--a britchka--sat Woloda, myself, and our servant Vassili. Papa, who was to follow us to Moscow in a few days, was standing bareheaded on the entrance-steps. He made the sign of the cross at the windows of the carriages, and said:"Christ go with you! Good-bye." Jakoff and our coachman (for we had our own horses) lifted their caps in answer, and also made the sign of the cross. "Amen. God go with us!" The carriages began to roll away, and the birch-trees of the great avenue filed out of sight. I was not in the least depressed on this occasion, for my mind was not so much turned upon what I had left as upon what was awaiting me. In proportion as the various objects connected with the sad recollections which had recently filled my imagination receded behind me, those recollections lost their power, and gave place to a consolatory feeling of life, youthful vigour, freshness, and hope.Seldom have I spent four days more--well, I will not say gaily, since I should still have shrunk from appearing gay--but more agreeably and pleasantly than those occupied by our journey.

Boyhood is the second novel in Leo Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy, following Childhood and followed by Youth. The novel was first published in the Russian literary journal Sovremennik in 1854.Tolstoy is best known for his two longest works, War and Peace (1865–69) and Anna Karenina (1875–77), which are commonly regarded as among the finest novels ever written. War and Peace in particular seems virtually to define this form for many readers and critics. Among Tolstoy’s shorter works, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) is usually classed among the best examples of the novella. Especially during his last three decades Tolstoy also achieved world renown as a moral and religious teacher. His doctrine of nonresistance to evil had an important influence on Gandhi. Although Tolstoy’s religious ideas no longer command the respect they once did, interest in his life and personality has, if anything, increased over the years.Most readers will agree with the assessment of the 19th-century British poet and critic Matthew Arnold that a novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life; the Russian author Isaak Babel commented that, if the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy. Critics of diverse schools have agreed that somehow Tolstoy’s works seem to elude all artifice. Most have stressed his ability to observe the smallest changes of consciousness and to record the slightest movements of the body. What another novelist would describe as a single act of consciousness, Tolstoy convincingly breaks down into a series of infinitesimally small steps. According to the English writer Virginia Woolf, who took for granted that Tolstoy was “the greatest of all novelists,” these observational powers elicited a kind of fear in readers, who “wish to escape from the gaze which Tolstoy fixes on us.” Those who visited Tolstoy as an old man also reported feelings of great discomfort when he appeared to understand their unspoken thoughts. It was commonplace to describe him as godlike in his powers and titanic in his struggles to escape the limitations of the human condition. Some viewed Tolstoy as the embodiment of nature and pure vitality, others saw him as the incarnation of the world’s conscience, but for almost all who knew him or read his works, he was not just one of the greatest writers who ever lived but a living symbol of the search for life’s meaning.

Tolstoy was born in 1828 and he was in his twenties when he wrote this early work. He his famous for detailed physical descriptions combined with emotional drama. For example, read that wonderful short story Master and Man that combines those two elements. The present work has the detailed descriptions but lacks the emotional appeal and lacks the great characters that we see in other works, i.e.: a crying youth because he is humiliated is hardly a great emotional experience. Tolstoy remains as one of the leading writers of novels. His impressive legacy includes three of four monumental works including War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and the novella The Death of Ivan Ilych. According to his own estimate, he has over 400 works - as he describes in one of his non-fiction works. Tolstoy's writing can be divided into three phases: the early years up to 1860 to 1861, the mid-career years from approximately 1861 to 1890, and his final years when he turned to non-fiction polemics. His most important fiction was written in the middle period, and it started with the release of The Cossacks in 1863. That story contains emotional elements and descriptions similar to what we read in Anna Karenina. His writings before The Cossacks contains his famous detail but lacks the same level of drama and emotion.

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Leo Tolstoy began his trilogy, Childhood; Boyhood; Youth, in his early twenties. Although he would in his old age famously dismiss it as an 'awkward mixture of fact and fiction', generations of readers have not agreed, finding the novel to be a charming and insightful portrait of inner growth against the background of a world limned with extraordinary clarity, grace and color. Evident too in its brilliant account of a young person's emerging awareness of the world and of his place within it are many of the stances, techniques and themes that would come to full flower in the immortal War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and in the other great works of Tolstoy's maturity.

Leo Tolstoy began his trilogy, Childhood; Boyhood; Youth, in his early twenties. Although he would in his old age famously dismiss it as an 'awkward mixture of fact and fiction', generations of readers have not agreed, finding the novel to be a charming and insightful portrait of inner growth against the background of a world limned with extraordinary clarity, grace and color. Evident too in its brilliant account of a young person's emerging awareness of the world and of his place within it are many of the stances, techniques and themes that would come to full flower in the immortal War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and in the other great works of Tolstoy's maturity. Prizewinning translator Judson Rosengrant has stunningly realized Tolstoy's voice in English prose to make this new Penguin Classics edition of Childhood; Boyhood; Youth the "definitive translation. . . in this generation" (Janet Fitch). For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.