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...This book contains a critical essay on Shakespeare by Leo Tolstoy. It is followed by another essay named Shakespeare's attitude to the working classes by Ernest Crosby and extracts of a letter by George Bernard Shaw. (Summary by enko)...

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Essay/Short nonfiction, Literature

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Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. In Book 4, Anna's husband considers drastic measures to address the flagrant infidelity of his wife, while Kitty and Levin meet once again in Moscow to their mutual discomfiture. (Summary by Mary Anderson and MaryAnn)...

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Fiction

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...Childhood (Детство [Detstvo]; 1852) is the first novel in Leo Tolstoy’s autobiographical trilogy. They are the works that launched his writing career. These books earned him instant acclaim. This book describes the major physiological decisions of boyhood that all boys experience....

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Biography

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... is forced to face the death he fears, he asks himself whether the life he thought was so correct was, in fact, a moral life after all. Written after Tolstoy's religious conversion, the novella is widely considered to be one of his masterpieces. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)...

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Literature

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The inner working of my soul, which I wish to speak of here, was not the result of a methodical investigation of doctrinal theology, or of the actual texts of the gospel; it was a sudden removal of all that hid the true meaning of the Christian doctrine – a momentary flash of light, which made everything clear to me. It was something like that which might happen to a man who, after vainly attempting, by a false plan, to build up a statue out of a confused heap of small pieces of marble, suddenly guesses at the figure they are intended to form by the shape of the largest piece; and then, on beginning to set up the statue, finds his guess confirmed by the harmonious joining in of the various pieces. (Extract from Chapter 1)...

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Religion

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The Cossacks (1863) is an unfinished novel which describes the Cossack life and people through a story of Dmitri Olenin, a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. This text was acclaimed by Ivan Bunin as one of the finest in the language....

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Literature

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...Childhood, published in 1852, is the first novel in Leo Tolstoy’s autobiographical trilogy, which also includes Boyhood, and Youth. Published when Tolstoy was twenty-three, the book gained immediate notice among Russian writers including Ivan Turgenev, and heralded the young T...

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Biography

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...In 1908 Leo Tolstoy organized a school for peasant children, age 10-13, in his house. During lessons he expounded them the most clear and important passages from Gospels. From those conversations Tolstoy composed that book. (Summary ...

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Religion

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Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. In Book 7, Levin, in town for Kitty’s confinement, finds himself drawn to the corruptive influence of Moscow society. Stiva again presses Karenin to divorce Anna, while Anna, driven by jealousy, becomes increasingly irrational towards Vronsky. (Summary by Mary Anderson and MaryAnn)...

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Romance, Tragedy

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...Written after Tolstoy suffered a spiritual crisis, Ivan the Fool is a fairy tale that offers children instruction in how to live rightly, simply, and generously. The story emphasizes the destructive aspects of materialism and militarism wh...

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Fairy tales, Fiction, Short stories

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...Boyhood is the second in Tolstoy's trilogy of three autobiographical novels, including Childhood and Youth, published in a literary journal during the 1850s. (Introduction by Bill Boerst)...

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Memoirs, Biography, Literature

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...Het gaat hier om een (ingekorte) Nederlandse vertaling van het klassieke werk van Leo Tolstoy. Een aristocratische vrouw verlaat haar ongelukkig huwelijk voor een nieuwe liefde....

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Fiction, Literature

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...Although Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a wealthy landowner, in his later life he had what was considered a “religious awakening.” This experience went on to inform his writing and his lifestyle in profound ways. His views transcended th...

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Short stories

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Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage to follow her heart and must endure the hypocrisies of society. (Summary by Mary Anderson)...

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Romance, Tragedy, Historical Fiction, Literature

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Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage to follow her heart and must endure the hypocrisies of society. (Summary by Mary Anderson)...

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Romance, Tragedy

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In Part 2, Kitty’s health deteriorates from regret and heartbreak, while Levin retreats to his country estate. Anna and Vronsky continue to pursue each other and become the talk of polite society, to the chagrin of Karenin. (Summary by Mary Ann )...

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Historical Fiction, Romance, Tragedy

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Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage to follow her heart and must endure the hypocrisies of society. (Summary by Mary Anderson) In Book 5 we see the new life begun by Levin and Kitty contrasted with that of Anna and Vronsky. The seeds of Anna's and Vronsky's discontent are sown....

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Fiction

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Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. In Book 8, Vronsky leaves for the Servian war, unable to live without Anna and hoping to die. Back at his farm with a loving wife and baby son, Levin struggles with thoughts of death and the horror of living when he does not understand the whence, and why, and how, and what [life] was. (Summary by Mary Anderson and MaryAnn)...

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Fiction, Romance, Tragedy

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...t off an explosive debate in Europe, America, and Asia on matters relating to sexual abstinence and the hypocrisy of marriage. The novella emphasizes Tolstoy's controversial view on sexuality, which asserts that physical desire is an obstacle to relations between men and women and may result in tragedy. The Kreutzer Sonata has been recognized as among the best examples of ...

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Fiction, Tragedy

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...Resurrection is the last of Tolstoy's major fiction works published in his lifetime. Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of institutionalized church. It was first published serially in the magazine...

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Literature