A Confession and Other Religious Writings [Anne Rice's Personal Copy]

Leo Tolstoy

ISBN 10: 0140444734 / ISBN 13: 9780140444735

Published by Penguin Group Ltd, London, 1988

About this Item

Signed to title page and annotated throughout by Anne Rice. A softcover edition of Tolstoy s "A Confession and Other Religious Writings," personally owned, signed, and annotated by author Anne Rice. Signed on the title page: "Anne Rice / Oct Nov, 2017 / didn t date my first notes / Resuming 11 12 17." Provenance is the estate of Anne Rice. Rice, a lifelong admirer of Tolstoy, seems to have frequently annotated her personal copies of his works. This volume offers a glimpse into Rice's private reading and reflections on one of the Old World s greatest literary contributors. Approximately two dozen pages feature Rice s handwritten notes and underlinings, most focused on Tolstoy s "A Confession," his meditation on the meaning of life during a period of profound emotional crisis. Rice s clear, elegant penmanship makes her commentary a pleasure to read. The book shows light shelf wear along the edges, otherwise Near Fine, with a tight binding and clean interior. Two distinct ink colors distinguish Rice s annotations, allowing readers to trace her thoughts across two separate readings of the text. In Chapter 4, she underlines Tolstoy s existential crisis: "The truth was that life is meaningless…" with Rice s date of her notes as 11 12 17 along with her summary and response. Elsewhere, she directly engages Tolstoy s views, challenging his claim that art is merely "an adornment and embellishment of life," responding firmly in the margin: "No; much more." Author-owned and annotated editions offer a unique form of literary association copies. While not necessarily specially printed or bound, association copies create a truly unique edition, unlike any conventional limited editions. A rather intimate Anne Rice edition; and really a delight to read the thoughts of both authors side by side.

Seller Inventory # 5269

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Confession and Other Religious Writings [Anne Rice's Personal Copy]
• Publisher: Penguin Group Ltd, London
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0140444734
• ISBN 13: 9780140444735
• Binding: Softcover
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: No jacket issued
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Modern Classics
  • FEATURED AUTHORS
  • FICTION
  • Signed Books less than $300
  • Great Gifts Under $300

About this title

Synopsis

Tolstoy's passionate and iconoclastic writings--on issues of faith, immortality, freedom, violence, and morality--reflect his intellectual search for truth and a religion firmly grounded in reality. The selection includes 'A Confession,' 'Religion and Morality,' 'What Is Religion, and of What Does Its Essence Consist?,' and 'The Law of Love and the Law of Violence.'

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About the Author

Count Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia. Orphaned at nine, he was brought up by an elderly aunt and educated by French tutors until he matriculated at Kazan University in 1844. In 1847, he gave up his studies and, after several aimless years, volunteered for military duty in the army, serving as a junior officer in the Crimean War before retiring in 1857. In 1862, Tolstoy married Sophie Behrs, a marriage that was to become, for him, bitterly unhappy. His diary, started in 1847, was used for self-study and self-criticism; it served as the source from which he drew much of the material that appeared not only in his great novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina(1877), but also in his shorter works. Seeking religious justification for his life, Tolstoy evolved a new Christianity based upon his own interpretation of the Gospels. Yasnaya Polyana became a mecca for his many converts. At the age of eighty-two, while away from home, the writer suffered a break down in his health in Astapovo, Riazan, and he died there on November 20, 1910.