Leo Tolstoy

One of Tolstoy’s last published works of fiction, The Devil revolves around the young landowner Yevgeny’s irrepressible lust for Stepanida, a sensual peasant woman. Even when he gets married to a respectable upper-class lady, he finds himself unable to put an end to his encounters with Stepanida, and becomes increasingly consumed by guilt and helplessness in the face of his urges. In some ways comparable to the controversial Kreutzer Sonata, The Devil shows Tolstoy at his most salacious, and addresses the conflicts between desire, social norms and personal conscience. Also included in this volume is Family Happiness, one of Tolstoy’s earliest works, an entertaining and cynical account of marriage from the perspective of a disillusioned wife, and A Landowner’s Morning.

Krieg und Frieden - Historischer Roman ist ein unver nderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1885. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ern hrung, Medizin und weiteren Genres. Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur. Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquit ten erh ltlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese B cher neu und tr gt damit zum Erhalt selten gewordener Literatur und historischem Wissen auch f r die Zukunft bei.

Trapped in a stifling marriage, Anna Karenina is swept off her feet by dashing Count Vronsky. Rejected by society, the two lovers flee to Italy, where Anna finds herself isolated from all except the man she loves, and who loves her. But can they live by love alone? In this novel of astonishing scope and grandeur, Leo Tolstoy, the great master of Russian literature, charts the course of the human heart. A masterpiece of realism and illuminated by irresistible characters, Anna Karenina is among the best-loved of all novels, penetrating to the heart of the ruling class in Tsarist Russia. This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Anna Karenina is translated by Aylmer & Louise Maude, and features an afterword by Ned Halley. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

'One of the greatest love stories in world literature' Vladimir NabokovAnna is a beautiful, intelligent woman whose passionate affair with the dashing Count Vronsky leads her to ruin. But her story is also about a search for meaning, and by twinning it with that of Levin, an awkward idealist whose happy marriage and domestic trials form the backdrop for a similar quest, Tolstoy creates a rich and complex masterpiece that has captured the imagination of readers for decades.'I've read and re-read this novel and every time I find another layer in the story' Philippa GregoryTRANSLATED BY LOUISE AND AYLMER MAUDEVINTAGE CLASSICS RUSSIAN SERIES - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history.

From sophisticated Moscow soirees to breathless troika rides through the snow, from the bloody front line at Austerlitz to a wife's death in childbirth, the author conjures a broad panorama of rich, messy, beautiful and debased human life.

INTRODUCTION After making a production of Redemption, the chief feeling of the producer is one of deep regret that Tolstoi did not make more use of the theatre as a medium. His was the rare gift of vitalization: the ability to breathe life into word-people which survives in them so long as there is any one left to turn up the pages they have made their abode. In the world of writing, many terms that should be illuminative have become meaningless. So often has the barren been called "pregnant," the chill of death "the breath of life," the atrophied "pulsating," that when we really come upon a work with beating heart we find it difficult to give it place that has not already been stuffed to suffocation with misplaced dummies. We seat it at table with staring wax figures and bid it to join the feast. There is no exclusion act in art, no passport bureau, not even hygienic segregation. In writing the briefest introduction to Tolstoi's work, I am appointed by the publisher, a sort of reception committee of one to escort the work to some fitting place where it may enjoy the surroundings and deference it deserves. The place to which I escort it is built of words, but what words have been left me by the long procession of previous committees? Where they have been truthfully used they have been glorified, and offer all the rarer material for my structure, but how often have they been subjected to base use. Perhaps some day we will learn the proper respect of such simple words as love and truth and life, and then when we meet them in books we shall know how to greet them. The study of Redemption is so simple that it needs no illumination from me. The characters may walk in strange lands without introduction. They are part of us. F dya is in all of us. His one cry "There has always been so much lacking between what I felt and what I could do" instantly makes him brother to all mankind. His simultaneous physical degeneration and spiritual regeneration is the glory that all people have invested in death. Tolstoi's cry against convention that disregards spiritual struggle, and system that ignores human growth, will find answering cries in many breasts in many lands.......

Extract: On the 12th of August, 18- (just three days after my tenth birthday, when I had been given such wonderful presents), I was awakened at seven o'clock in the morning by Karl Ivanitch slapping the wall close to my head with a fly-flap made of sugar paper and a stick. He did this so roughly that he hit the image of my patron saint suspended to the oaken back of my bed, and the dead fly fell down on my curls. I peeped out from under the coverlet, steadied the still shaking image with my hand, flicked the dead fly on to the floor, and gazed at Karl Ivanitch with sleepy, wrathful eyes. He, in a parti-coloured wadded dressing-gown fastened about the waist with a wide belt of the same material, a red knitted cap adorned with a tassel, and soft slippers of goat skin, went on walking round the walls and taking aim at, and slapping, flies. "Suppose," I thought to myself, "that I am only a small boy, yet why should he disturb me? Why does he not go killing flies around Woloda's bed? No; Woloda is older than I, and I am the youngest of the family, so he torments me. That is what he thinks of all day long-how to tease me. He knows very well that he has woken me up and frightened me, but he pretends not to notice it. Disgusting brute And his dressing-gown and cap and tassel too-they are all of them disgusting." While I was thus inwardly venting my wrath upon Karl Ivanitch, he had passed to his own bedstead, looked at his watch (which hung suspended in a little shoe sewn with bugles), and deposited the fly-flap on a nail, then, evidently in the most cheerful mood possible, he turned round to us. "Get up, children It is quite time, and your mother is already in the drawing-room," he exclaimed in his strong German accent......

Presentation This novel first appeared in serial form in the periodical Rousky vestnik (The Russian Messenger or The Russian Courier), but Tolstoy entered into conflict with the editor-in-chief Mikhail Katkov about the content of the last episode. The novel, therefore, appeared in its entirety only when it was published as a book. The soap opera nevertheless achieved great success in nineteenth-century Russia, with some women in the world going so far as to send their servants to print to determine the content of the next episodes. Anna Karenina portrays the Russian nobility, on which Tolstoy looks critically. The character of Anna Karenina was partly inspired by Maria Hartung (1832-1919), the eldest daughter of the poet Alexander Pushkin. For the tragic end of the novel, the author was inspired by a fact: the mistress of his neighbor Bibikov threw himself under a train in January 1872; He went to see the body of the unhappy woman. Summary Anna Karenina is a young woman married to Alexis Karenina, faithful and mother of a young boy Serge. Anna Karenina goes to Moscow with her brother Stiva Oblonski. As she left the train, she met Count Vronski. Anna falls in love with Vronski, that brilliant but frivolous officer. She fights against this passion and ends up by abandoning herself with guilty happiness to the current that carries her to this young officer. Then Anna gets pregnant. Feeling guilty and deeply depressed by her fault, she decides to confess her infidelity to her husband. The love she brings to her son makes her think for a moment of abandoning husband and lover and fleeing with him. But a letter from her husband, who had gone on a journey, in response to his confession, where he only asked her to respect appearances, decided to stay. But the pregnancy is going badly. After giving birth to a daughter, Anna contracts fever and risks dying. She sends a telegram to her husband, asking her to return and forgive her. She repents and calls death as a liberation for all. Empress by the remorse of his wife and his imminent death, Alexis consents to forgive him. Then, some time later, an unexpected encounter with Vronski is enough to shatter the decision of Anna. She throws herself in her arms and they decide to flee together abroad. It is for Anna, a moment of joy and deliverance. Back in Russia, Anna and Vronski live on the margins of society. They arouse both admiration and disapproval for having thus braved the conventions of the high society of Russia. Vronski's fortune allows them to have an independent existence and they manage to recreate a micro-society around them on the margins of the Great World. But Anna can not bear to have abandoned her child and betrayed her husband. This heavy climate provokes a reciprocal misunderstanding that obscures their union. Anna, a prey to the most violent torments, and caught in a gear from which she can not free herself, put an end to her life by throwing herself under a train. In parallel to their adventure, Tolstoy paints the portrait of two other couples: Kitty and L vine, and Daria and Oblonski. Kitty is a beautiful teenager who, at eighteen, makes her entry into the world. At a ball, the statement of L vine flatters it because it gives importance. She nevertheless answers in the negative because she is in love with Vronski. The latter escapes him at this ball where he succumbs to the fascination of Anna. Kitty dark then in shame. Several months after this sinister ball, Kitty meets again Levine with whom she then feels a mixture of dread and happiness. She realizes she only loved him. Kitty and L vine understand that the past was only a trial destined to consolidate their love. They decide to marry. Daria, wife submissive and resigned, but especially exhausted by the tasks of everyday life is the wife of Stiva Oblonski. Despite his infidelity, Oblonski lavished on his wife several marks of comforting tenderness.

Presentation This novel first appeared in serial form in the periodical Rousky vestnik (The Russian Messenger or The Russian Courier), but Tolstoy entered into conflict with the editor-in-chief Mikhail Katkov about the content of the last episode. The novel, therefore, appeared in its entirety only when it was published as a book. The soap opera nevertheless achieved great success in nineteenth-century Russia, with some women in the world going so far as to send their servants to print to determine the content of the next episodes. Anna Karenina portrays the Russian nobility, on which Tolstoy looks critically. The character of Anna Karenina was partly inspired by Maria Hartung (1832-1919), the eldest daughter of the poet Alexander Pushkin. For the tragic end of the novel, the author was inspired by a fact: the mistress of his neighbor Bibikov threw himself under a train in January 1872; He went to see the body of the unhappy woman. Summary Anna Karenina is a young woman married to Alexis Karenina, faithful and mother of a young boy Serge. Anna Karenina goes to Moscow with her brother Stiva Oblonski. As she left the train, she met Count Vronski. Anna falls in love with Vronski, that brilliant but frivolous officer. She fights against this passion and ends up by abandoning herself with guilty happiness to the current that carries her to this young officer. Then Anna gets pregnant. Feeling guilty and deeply depressed by her fault, she decides to confess her infidelity to her husband. The love she brings to her son makes her think for a moment of abandoning husband and lover and fleeing with him. But a letter from her husband, who had gone on a journey, in response to his confession, where he only asked her to respect appearances, decided to stay. But the pregnancy is going badly. After giving birth to a daughter, Anna contracts fever and risks dying. She sends a telegram to her husband, asking her to return and forgive her. She repents and calls death as a liberation for all. Empress by the remorse of his wife and his imminent death, Alexis consents to forgive him. Then, some time later, an unexpected encounter with Vronski is enough to shatter the decision of Anna. She throws herself in her arms and they decide to flee together abroad. It is for Anna, a moment of joy and deliverance. Back in Russia, Anna and Vronski live on the margins of society. They arouse both admiration and disapproval for having thus braved the conventions of the high society of Russia. Vronski's fortune allows them to have an independent existence and they manage to recreate a micro-society around them on the margins of the Great World. But Anna can not bear to have abandoned her child and betrayed her husband. This heavy climate provokes a reciprocal misunderstanding that obscures their union. Anna, a prey to the most violent torments, and caught in a gear from which she can not free herself, put an end to her life by throwing herself under a train. In parallel to their adventure, Tolstoy paints the portrait of two other couples: Kitty and L vine, and Daria and Oblonski. Kitty is a beautiful teenager who, at eighteen, makes her entry into the world. At a ball, the statement of L vine flatters it because it gives importance. She nevertheless answers in the negative because she is in love with Vronski. The latter escapes him at this ball where he succumbs to the fascination of Anna. Kitty dark then in shame. Several months after this sinister ball, Kitty meets again Levine with whom she then feels a mixture of dread and happiness. She realizes she only loved him. Kitty and L vine understand that the past was only a trial destined to consolidate their love. They decide to marry. Daria, wife submissive and resigned, but especially exhausted by the tasks of everyday life is the wife of Stiva Oblonski. Despite his infidelity, Oblonski lavished on his wife several marks of comforting tenderness.

Extract: FRUITS OF CULTURE ACT I The entrance hall of a wealthy house in Moscow. There are three doors: the front door, the door of Leon d Fy doritch's study, and the door of Vas ly Leon ditch's room. A staircase leads up to the other rooms; behind it is another door leading to the servants' quarters. Scene 1. GREGORY looks at himself in the glass and arranges his hair, &c.] I am sorry about those moustaches of mine "Moustaches are not becoming to a footman," she says And why? Why, so that any one might see you're a footman, -else my looks might put her darling son to shame. He's a likely one There's not much fear of his coming anywhere near me, moustaches or no moustaches Smiling into the glass] And what a lot of 'em swarm round me. And yet I don't care for any of them as much as for that T nya. And she only a lady's-maid Ah well, she's nicer than any young lady. Smiles] She is a duck Listening] Ah, here she comes. Smiles] Yes, that's her, clattering with her little heels. Oh Enter T nya, carrying a cloak and boots. GREGORY. My respects to you, Taty na M rkovna. T NYA. What are you always looking in the glass for? Do you think yourself so good-looking? GREGORY. Well, and are my looks not agreeable? T NYA. So, so; neither agreeable nor disagreeable, but just betwixt and between Why are all those cloaks hanging there? GREGORY. I am just going to put them away, your ladyship Takes down a fur cloak and, wrapping it round her, embraces her] I say, T nya, I'll tell you something ... T NYA. Oh, get away, do What do you mean by it? Pulls herself angrily away] Leave me alone, I tell you GREGORY looks cautiously around] Then give me a kiss T NYA. Now, really, what are you bothering for? I'll give you such a kiss Raises her hand to strike]. VAS LY LEON DITCH off the scene, rings and then shouts] Gregory T NYA. There now, go Vas ly Leon ditch is calling you. GREGORY. He'll wait He's only just opened his eyes I say, why don't you love me? T NYA. What sort of loving have you imagined now? I don't love anybody. GREGORY. That's a fib. You love Simon You have found a nice one to love-a common, dirty-pawed peasant, a butler's assistant T NYA. Never mind; such as he is, you are jealous of him VAS LY LEON DITCH off the scene] Gregory GREGORY. All in good time....