The Death of Ivan Ilych - Softcover

Tolstoy, Leo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 055741833X ISBN 13: 9780557418336

Publisher: Lulu Press, Inc., 2010

Synopsis

Leo Tolstoy’s classic life-affirming tale of denial and acceptance, The Death of Ivan Ilych—Смерть Ивана Ильича is presented for the first time in English-Russian parallel text, complete and unabridged. Ivan Ilych learns of his impending death. How he deals with it and his glorious realization at the end are examples of Tolstoy’s great insights into the human experience—filled with the author’s vigorous style that has resonated with readers for over a century. Chapter illustrations feature the artwork of Tolstoy's contemporary, artist Ilya Yefimovich Repin. The Bilingual Library presents the world’s classics in parallel text. Each page in the original language is mirrored by its English translation on the facing page. Series editor D. Bannon is a member of the American Literary Translators Association and the American Translators Association.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.

About the Author

COUNT LEV (LEO) NIKOLAYEVICH TOLSTOY was born in 1828 about two hundred miles from Moscow. His mother died when he was two, his father when he was nine. His parents were of noble birth, and Tolstoy remained acutely aware of his aristocratic roots, even when he later embraced doctrines of equality and the brotherhood of man. After serving in the army in the Caucasus and Crimea, where he wrote his first stories, he traveled and studied educational theories. In 1862 he married Sophia Behrs and for the next fifteen years lived a tranquil, productive life, finishing War and Peace in 1869 and Anna Karenina in 1877. In 1879 he underwent a spiritual crisis; he sought to propagate his beliefs on faith, morality, and nonviolence, writing mostly parables, tracts, and morality plays. Tolstoy died of pneumonia in 1910 at the age of eighty-two.

Edition details

• Publisher: Lulu Press, Inc.
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 055741833X
• ISBN 13: 9780557418336
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 134