Combining detailed physical description with perceptive psychological insight, Leo Tolstoy realistically sweeps aside the sham of surface appearances to lay bare man's intimates gestures, acts, and thoughts.

In this trilogy of autobiographical novels Leo Tolstoy's first published works are gathered together. An instant success, one which would launch Tolstoy's distinguished career, "Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth", was first published from 1852 to 1856. In these works, the early life of Nikolai, the son of wealthy landowner in Russia, is fully explored, slowly revealing this young boy's inner mind, relationships, and social standing. As he describes his...

A son was born to a poor peasant. He rejoiced and went to a neighbor to ask him to stand as godfather to the boy. The neighbor refused. He did not want to be godfather to a poor man's son. So the peasant went to another neighbor and he, too, refused. He walked from house to house, but could find no one who would be godfather to his son, so he set out to another village.

"Walk in the Light and Twenty-Three Tales" is a collection of religious tales and parables by the famed Russian author Leo Tolstoy, regarded by many as one of the world's greatest authors. In addition to his most well-known novels "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina," which are regarded as the epitomes of realist fiction, Tolstoy was also a prolific writer of short stories and non-fiction. In the middle of his life, the author underwent a profound...

The greatest novelist of all time retells the greatest story ever told, the life of Jesus Christ, in The Gospel in Brief-Leo Tolstoy's riveting, novelistic integration of the four Gospels into a single, twelve-chapter narrative. Virtually unknown to English readers until now, Dustin Condren's groundbreaking translation from the Russian opens a precious new world of Tolstoy's masterful literary talent to fans of War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

"The Kreutzer Sonata" portrays an intense conflict between sexual desire and moral constraint. "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" is a simple, moving tale of peasant life with a moral lesson; the hero of "The Death of Ivan Ilych," after a lifetime of struggle, finds faith and love only as he faces death. Explanatory footnotes.

"In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the reader through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for twenty years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program. Paired with stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, these essays are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. Saunders approaches...