Leo Tolstoy - Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume One

LEO TOLSTOY

COLLECTED
SHORTER
FICTION
(in two volumes)

Written over a period of more than half a century, these stories reflect every aspect of Tolstoys art and personality. They cover his experiences as a soldier in the Caucasus, his married life, his passionate interest in the peasantry, his cult of truth and simplicity, and, above all, his growing preoccupation with religion. Ranging in scope from novellas like The Kreutzer Sonata and Hadji Murad to folk-tales only a few pages long, they provide a marvelous opportunity to become closely acquainted with Russias great novelist. Aylmer and Louise Maudes classic translations are supplemented by new translations by Nigel J. Cooper of six stories, including two that have never before appeared in English.

MAUDE, AYLMER : The Life of Tolstoy, 2 volumes, Oxford University Press, 1930 (revised version of the 190810 edition). Besides translating Tolstoys writings, Maude was Tolstoys friend and follower, and has insights not available to later biographers. This Life remains a classic.

SIMMONS, ERNEST J .: Leo Tolstoy, 2 volumes, Vintage Books, Boston, 194546 (Vintage paperback edition 1960), Routledge, London, 1973. A detailed and scholarly account by a distinguished American critic.

TROYAT, HENRI : Tolstoy (first published in French, 1965), Doubleday, New York, 1967, W. H. Allen, London, 1968, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1970. A detailed and popular biography (denounced by Nabokov as a vile biographie romance). Highly readable if somewhat bland, and thin on the implications of Tolstoys ideas. Comprehensive in its references to the shorter fiction.

CRANKSHAW, EDWARD : Tolstoy The Making of a Novelist, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1974. Less detailed and more idiosyncratic than the titles above, but a knowledgeable and well-illustrated study concentrating largely on Tolstoys personal and spiritual development before 1880.

WILSON, A. N .: Tolstoy, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1988, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1989. A stimulating, consciously unreverential treatment which is very readable, and good on the ideas as well as the literary writings. Refers to most of the more important short fiction.

CHRISTIAN, R. F . (editor and translator): Tolstoys Letters, 2 volumes, Athlone Press, London and Scribners, New York, 1978.

CHRISTIAN, R. F . (editor and translator): Tolstoys Diaries, 2 volumes, Athlone Press, London and Scribners, New York, 1985.

These two comprehensive collections, clearly presented and well annotated, provide invaluable tools for the reader who wants to explore the connections between Tolstoys life and his fictions.

BAYLEY, JOHN : Tolstoy and the Novel, Chatto & Windus, London, 1966 (paperback edition 1968). The main focus is on War and Peace, but there are many references to the shorter writings.

CAIN, T. G. S .: Tolstoy (Novelists and their World series), Paul Elek, London, 1977. A survey of Tolstoys work which foregrounds his ethical and spiritual struggles. Includes discussions of Family Happiness, the post-conversion writings and Hadji Murad.

CHRISTIAN, R. F .: Tolstoy, a Critical Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 1969. A methodical and detailed survey of Tolstoys writings. Includes a discussion of Tolstoys earliest writings and a chapter on the later stories.

EIKHENBAUM, B. M .: The Young Tolstoy, tr. G. Kerne, Ardis, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1972. A translation of the great Soviet critics 1922 study which has much to say about narrative technique.

GIFFORD, HENRY (editor): Leo Tolstoy A Critical Anthology, Penguin Books, 1971. An interesting anthology of reactions to Tolstoys writing, from contemporaries and later readers.

GREENWOOD, E. B .: Tolstoy The Comprehensive Vision, Dent, London, 1975, paperback edition Methuen, London, 1980. A densely written survey covering the full range of Tolstoys fiction with an emphasis on psychology and ideas. Devotes more space than most critics to the shorter fiction of the early, middle and late periods.

JONES, MALCOLM (editor): New Essays on Tolstoy, Cambridge University Press, 1978. A symposium of contributions by ten writers which includes an essay on Hadji Murad by A. D. P. Briggs and a bibliography of Tolstoy studies in Great Britain.

KNOWLES, A. V . (editor): Tolstoy The Critical Heritage, Routledge, London and Boston, 1978. A rich collection of criticism and comment on his works from Tolstoys own lifetime.

MATLAW, RALPH E .: Tolstoy A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967. A representative collection of a dozen essays drawn from a wide range of writers. Half the pieces are thematic but Wasioleks thoughts on Ivan Ilych are included, as well as Shestovs essay on Tolstoys late works which focuses on Diary of a Madman and discusses After the Ball and Master and Man.

ORWIN, DONNA TUSSING : Tolstoys Art and Thought, 18471880, Princeton University Press, 1993. A detailed examination of the main philosophical and intellectual influences on Tolstoy during his major creative period.

STEINER, GEORGE : Tolstoy or Dostoevsky An Essay in Contrast, Faber, London, 1960. A remarkably full introduction to Tolstoys world view and art, considering that he shares the focus of the book with Dostoevsky. Many references to the shorter fiction.

WASIOLEK, EDWARD : Tolstoys Major Fiction, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1978. A concise overview of Tolstoys fiction which gives the shorter works unusual prominence: Wasiolek includes useful sections on Three Deaths, Polikushka and Family Happiness, as well as chapters devoted to The Death of Ivan Ilych and Master and Man.

LOUISE and AYLMER MAUDE spent much of their lives in Russia. Their Quaker background led them to share many of Tolstoys views on spiritual life, moral obligation and passive resistance to violence, and they helped him to organize the Doukhobor migration to Canada in 1893. Aylmer Maude, whose business activities left him time to write a biography of his friend, also translated most of Tolstoys major works in partnership with his wife. These translations, which were commended by the author himself, are still widely regarded as the best.

NIGEL J. COOPER read French and Russian at Christ Church, Oxford. He has recently retired from Middlesex University where he was a Principal Lecturer in Modern Languages.

JOHN BAYLEY is former Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. His many books include Tolstoy and the Novel; Pushkin: A Comparative Commentary; The Short Story: Henry James to Elizabeth Bowen; An Essay on Hardy, Shakespeare and Tragedy and a detailed study of A. E. Housmans poems. He has also written several novels.

CHINUA ACHEBE
The African Trilogy
Things Fall Apart
AESCHYLUS
The Oresteia
ISABEL ALLENDE
The House of the Spirits
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
(in 2 vols, tr. Husain Haddawy)