'War and Peace' has been described as the Illiad and the Odyssey of the Russian people, with just cause. This is a work that speaks to the meaning and hope of life. Tolstoy's realism forced him to strip away much of the glorification of war and show the realities. Yet Tolstoy presents the events of 1812 as a moral crusade, and that the Russians won against the Napoleonic onslaught because of their adherence to simple, good and true virtues (as much...

Anna Karenina is often referred to as a pinnacle of realist fiction and flawless work of art embedding Tolstoy's true stylistic magic. Leo Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina his first true novel which follows life of a married socialite and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The novel explores a diverse range of topics from politics to family, religion, morality, gender, social class and romance. The novel consists of eight volumes....

A famous legend surrounding the creation of Anna Karenina tells us that Tolstoy began writing a cautionary tale about adultery and ended up by falling in love with his magnificent heroine. It is rare to find a reader of the book who doesn't experience the same kind of emotional upheaval: Anna Karenina is filled with major and minor characters who exist in their own right and fully embody their mid-nineteenth-century Russian milieu, but it still belongs...

While serving as a juror at the trial of a prostitute, Prince Nekhlyudov recognizes the defendant as a young servant girl he once loved and abandoned and tries to rectify the situation.

This work marks the author's movement from the pursuit of aesthetic ideals toward matters of religious and philosophical consequence. The poignant text describes Tolstoy's heartfelt reexamination of Christian orthodoxy and subsequent spiritual awakening. Generations of readers have been inspired by this timeless account of one man's struggle for faith and meaning in life.

In nineteenth-century Russia, the wife of an important government official loses her family and social status when she chooses the love of Count Vronsky over a passionless marriage.

Ivan Ilych, a peaceful public official in the Russian provinces, has his life permanently changed by a serious illness which no doctor can accurately diagnose. Includes three of the Russian author's other stories.

Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing oficer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and...

"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...