Selected Stories by Leo Tolstoy

by Leo Tolstoy

The Masterpieces of World Fiction series brings together the best-loved short stories by the great masters of the genre-from Chekov and Maupassant, Kipling and Wilde, to O. Henry and Saki and Tolstoy and Conrad. Thoughtfully compiled by the bestselling author Terry O' Brien, this series is a great way for readers to revisit old favourites and for introducing literary masterpieces to newer, younger readers.

Genres: Fiction, Russian Literature

164 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.

His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reviews

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection consists of ten short stories of Tolstoy's, including The Candle, After the Dance, Albert, Alyosha the Pot, An Old Acquaintance, Lucerne and God Sees the Truth, but Waits. The stories are a very varied lot, but tend to focus on human nature and its foibles, especially its weaknesses: greed, pride, anger, vanity, an inability to forgive. And some far more nuanced ones, like a man's indignation at how wealthy, prosperous travellers staying at a fashionable Swiss resort refuse to give a sou to a talented performer despite repeated requests - an indignation that is, to the narrator's surprise, not shared by the performer himself. Or how a woman's father's behaviour affects her admirer's perception of the woman herself.

I liked most of these stories a lot, but the ones that particularly stand out for me are The Candle; After the Dance; God Sees the Truth, but Waits; and the absolutely superb Does a Man Need Much Land? which was, for me, the very best story in this book.

[Pramendra Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story on "How much land does a Man Need" is an Epic. It is an Eye Opener for many. This is the story that can change a life.

[Ramanqu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simple moralistic stories

[Rencis Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories. More of spiritual journey and morals.