Amazon.com Editorial Review Some people say Anna Karenina is the single greatest novel ever written, which makes about as much sense to me as trying to determine the world's greatest color. But there is no doubt that Anna Karenina, generally considered Tolstoy's best book, is definitely one ripping great read. Anna, miserable in her loveless marriage, does the barely thinkable and succumbs to her desires for the dashing Vronsky...
Twelve powerful works of fiction, including Pushkin's "The Queen of Spades," Gogol's "The Overcoat," Turgenev's "The District Doctor," Dostoyevsky's "White Nights," Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?," plus "The Clothes Mender" by Leskov, "The Lady with the Toy Dog" by Chekhov, "Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" by Gorky, "Lazarus" by Andreyev, and more.
Key dimensions of Tolstoy's writing and life are explored in this collection of specially commissioned essays. While the essays focus on Tolstoy's artistic production, the introduction provides a brief, unified account of the man for whom art was only one activity among many. The essays are enhanced by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading. Altogether the volume provides an invaluable resource for scholars and students.
Added by: arcadius | Karma: 2802.10 | Fiction literature | 13 August 2011
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Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy September 9 [O.S. August 28] 1828 - November 20 [O.S. November 7] 1910), was a Russian writer widely regarded as among the greatest of novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist fiction. Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist, and educational reformer made him the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family.
