Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Works

by Leo Tolstoy

34 Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, Novels, Cultural, Collections

3531 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 18, 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.

See also:
French → Léon Tolstoï
Spanish → León Tolstói

Reviews

[Mara Matos]

Terminei A Morte de Ivan Ilitch e estou devastada.
Não é a história de um homem que morre, é a história do que acontece quando alguém só percebe que nunca viveu… no exato instante em que já não há tempo.
Tolstói tem esse poder cruel e bonito de colocar um espelho na nossa frente.
E o que dói não é a morte.
O que dói é o reconhecimento.
É o veneno silencioso da vida levada no automático, da existência construída para agradar os outros, da rotina que parece correta por fora, mas vai corroendo a alma por dentro.
Quando Ivan pergunta:
‘Então onde eu estarei quando eu não existir?’
senti como se ele estivesse perguntando por todos nós.
Por mim. Por você. Pela humanidade inteira.
Existe algo quase infantil e desesperado nessa pergunta, um medo de desaparecer, de não ter deixado marcas, de não ter sido verdade no mundo.
E é aí que o livro vira uma revelação:
não é sobre a morte, é sobre o instante em que você percebe que a única vida que vale a pena é aquela que você realmente vive.
Tolstói rasga e cura ao mesmo tempo.
E eu fecho esse livro prometendo pra mim mesma:
não quero acordar tarde demais.
Quero ser presença. Quero ser verdade.
Quero viver antes que a vida acabe 🙏🏼💙

[Randolph Rossi]

I only read two of the Novels in this Collection of Leo Tolstoy's Complete Works. I greatly enjoyed War and Peace, as it covered the various battles/ wars that Russia fought against Napoleon Bonaparte. I was only aware of his last campaign in which Moscow was captured and the resulting destruction of his Army by Partisans and the Brutal Russian Winter. I learned a lot about the social structure of Czarist Russia during this time.

I also read and enjoyed, The Death of Ivan Ilylich. The book starts with Ivan Ilylich's death and presents an insightful view of the feelings and thoughts of his family, friends and colleagues. The novella then goes back in his life presenting his successes and failures. His sickness and suffering is detailed in great deal and gives the reader a glimpse into death. A excellent character study of Ivan liylich which at times was rather morose.

[George Rovolis]

Hadji Murad only.