Works by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina
Description: Anna's world is turned upside down when her life takes a precarious turn. Although she is married with a son, Anna unexpectedly finds herself falling in love with Count Vrosky. Anna is determined to follow her passions, and her elicit love affair with Vrosky threatens to jeopardize her comfortable existence. Anna Karenina unravels into tragedy as the story's characters are confronted with dilemmas of faith, love, happiness, and betrayal. Tolstoy's profound depiction of human emotion and self-discovery provokes readers to question the meaning of life. Often construed as Tolstoy's greatest novel, Anna Karenina beautifully illustrates the political and social atmosphere of Russia during the 19th century. Anna Karenina is a deeply moving narrative which wrestles with the contradictions that beleaguer human happiness.

Emmalon Davis
CCEL Staff Writer
Confession
Description: In this short book, the newly-converted Tolstoy shares some of the struggles he faced during a mid-life crisis of faith. He begins by reflecting upon how neither philosophy nor religion seemed to answer any of life’s great questions. As he explains, the author only overcomes his doubts after observing and immersing himself in the faith of ordinary people performing everyday tasks. The Christian life lived out, more than anything else, revealed the truths of God to him. Tolstoy’s personal account not only provides insight into the mind of one of the world’s greatest novelists, but it also serves to shed light on the human experience of doubt, despair, and faith. Tolstoy’s Confession can be read especially well alongside his novella of similar themes, The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Kathleen O’Bannon
CCEL Staff
Death of Ivan Ilych
Description: Tolstoy's novella, written just after the author's conversion to Christianity, is now considered a literary masterpiece. In it, death suddenly confronts Ivan, a well-to-do middle-aged Russian man, in the form of an acute illness. Standing on the edge of death's yawning chasm, Ivan looks back at his life and its comparative vacuity. Before he fell ill, earning enough money for some elegant furniture concerned him, but now eternity and destiny wrack his spirit. Tolstoy's startlingly precise portrayal of human anxiety, desire, epiphany, and love has gripped countless readers from all walks of life, and many of them report that the story not only moved them to tears, but also had a profound impact upon how they view life and its purpose. This beloved book is essential to any library.

Kathleen O'Bannon
CCEL Staff
Family Happiness
Description: The title of Tolstoy’s novella is a clever joke, as it contains the story of a couple’s descent into unhappiness. The 17-year-old Mashechka falls in love with Sergey Mikhaylych, a man more than twice her age. After an awkward courtship, the two marry. As Mashechka matures, however, she begins to understand more of love’s complexities; she realizes that her love for Sergey was a mere child’s infatuation. Disillusioned, Mashechka grows to loathe both herself and married life. Tolstoy’s tale exhibits the vivid narration and perceptive observations of human existence that characterize all of the author’s works. Written before his conversion, Family Happiness provides an interesting contrast to Tolstoy’s later religious short stories and novels.

Kathleen O’Bannon
CCEL Staff
Father Sergius
Description: The young, proud Stepan Kasatsky has a seemingly bright future ahead of him: he has risen to a high rank in the Russian army, and he will soon marry the beautiful Countess Mary Korotkova. When Stepan discovers his fiancée’s infidelity—with Czar Nicholas I, no less—he experiences such heartbreak and humiliation that he flees, later dedicating himself to the Russian Orthodox Church. He takes the name “Father Sergius.” Although he becomes a celebrated churchman, he continues to struggle with pride and lust. Written during Tolstoy’s later, post-conversion years, Father Sergius shares the characteristic messages of humility, abstinence, self-denial, and total faith in God. In 1917, Yakov Protazanov, one of the founding fathers of Russian cinema, directed a film inspired by the novella.

Kathleen O’Bannon
CCEL Staff
Gospel In Brief
Description: This story of the life of Christ differs widely from Tolstoy’s other work. He provides us with an experimental narrative that blends the stories of the four Gospels into one. In this blend, Tolstoy discards what he finds incongruous to the modern person’s everyday experience and understanding, such as Jesus’ genealogy or miracles. With his stunning directness and literary expertise, Tolstoy makes Christ seem present and real in spite of the fact that his picture of Christ may not necessarily align that of other theologians.

Kathleen O'Bannon
CCEL Staff
Hadji Murad
Description: This short novel, published after Tolstoy's death, is the last novel the great author wrote. The novel tells the true story of Hadji Murad (or Hadji Murat, alternatively), an Avar who commanded the peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya in their resistance against assimilation into Russian Empire. Tolstoy had first heard of Murad during his travels, and the author became inspired by his refusal to give in to the demands of a corrupt world. Hadji Murad shares many of the same themes found in War and Peace. Those enchanted by Tolstoy's work may find yet another treasure in this lesser-known historical novel.

Kathleen O'Bannon
CCEL Staff
Kreutzer Sonata
Description: Although now considered one of Tolstoy’s best shorter stories, Russian authorities censored The Kreutzer Sonata after its publication in 1889. Similarly, other countries including the United States had banned the book’s translations. The story concerns Pozdnyshev, a cynical young man overcome by passion, rage, and jealousy. The author plumbs the innermost depths of Pozdnyshev’s crumbling mind; the callousness of that mind and its intentions can be profoundly unsettling. Tolstoy explains in the story’s epilogue, however, that the downfall of the twisted Pozdnyshev serves only to show how carnal lust destroys lives. While all readers acknowledge the story’s genius, its intended message of ascetic abstinence remains controversial. G.K. Chesterton, for example, wrote that “Tolstoy is not content with pitying humanity for its pains: such as poverty and prisons. He also pities humanity for its pleasures, such as music and patriotism. He weeps at the thought of hatred; but in The Kreutzer Sonata he weeps almost as much at the thought of love.”

Kathleen O’Bannon
CCEL Staff
Master and Man
Description: The avaricious Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov is impatient to set out on a business venture. Defying common sense, he drags his servant, Nikita, along with him into the bitter cold of a Russian blizzard. Brekhunov and Nikita lose themselves in the forest; in a matter of minutes, the master shifts from discomfort to panic and from irritation to desperation. Both his life and that of his servant are in his hands. Master and Man shares the startlingly precise insight into human nature that characterizes all of Tolstoy’s work. Passionate and rich in imagery, the short story has enchanted readers with its message of selfless love.

Kathleen O’Bannon
CCEL Staff
Twenty-Three Tales [from Digitization and markup by Harry Plantinga]
Description: Famous for his longer novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy displays his mastery of the short story in Twenty-Three Tales. This volume is organized by topic into seven different segments. Part I is filled with stories for children, while Part 2 is filled with popular stories for adult. In Part 3, Tolstoy discreetly condemns capitalism in his fairy tale "Ivan the Fool." Part 4 contains several short stories, which were originally published with illustrations to encourage the inexpensive reproduction of pictorial works. Part 5 features a number of Russian folk tales, which address the themes of greed, societal conflict, prayer, and virtue. Part 6 contains two French short stories, which Tolstoy translated and modified. Finally, Part 7 contains a group of parabolic short stories that Tolstoy dedicated to the Jews of Russia, who were persecuted in the early 1900's. Entertaining for all ages, Tolstoy's creative short stories are overflowing with deeper, often spiritual, meaning.

Emmalon Davis
CCEL Staff Writer
Works of Guy de Maupassant