Tolstoy's Short Fiction: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions) - Softcover

Tolstoy, Leo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393931501 ISBN 13: 9780393931501

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008

Synopsis

Leo Tolstoy’s short works, like his novels, show readers his narrative genius, keen observation, and historical acumen―albeit on a smaller scale.

This Norton Critical Edition presents twelve of Tolstoy’s best-known stories, based on the Louise and Aylmer Maude translations (except “Alyosha Gorshok”), which have been revised by the editor for enhanced comprehension and annotated for student readers. The Second Edition newly includes “A Prisoner in the Caucasus,” “Father Sergius,” and “After the Ball,” in addition to Michael Katz’s new translation of “Alyosha Gorshok.” Together these stories represent the best of the author’s short fiction before War and Peace and after Anna Karenina.

“Backgrounds and Sources” includes two Tolstoy memoirs, A History of Yesterday (1851) and The Memoirs of a Madman (1884), as well as entries―expanded in the Second Edition―from Tolstoy’s “Diary for 1855” and selected letters (1858–95) that shed light on the author’s creative process.

“Criticism” collects twenty-three essays by Russian and western scholars, six of which are new to this Second Edition. Interpretations focus both on Tolstoy’s language and art and on specific themes and motifs in individual stories. Contributors include John M. Kopper, Gary Saul Morson, N. G. Chernyshevsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, Harsha Ram, John Bayley, Vladimir Nabokov, Ruth Rischin, Margaret Ziolkowski, and Donald Barthelme.

A Chronology of Tolstoy’s life and work and an updated Selected Bibliography are also included.

About this title

About the Author:

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), a giant of world literature, is the author of many classics, including War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Michael R. Katz is the C. V. Starr Professor Emeritus of Russian and East European Studies at Middlebury College. He has published translations of more than fifteen Russian novels, including Fathers and Children and Notes from Underground. He lives in Cornwall, Vermont.

Language Notes:

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Russian

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0393931501
• ISBN 13: 9780393931501
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 528
• Editor: Katz Michael R.