1801-1917
Childhood
Widely regarded as one of the most talented novelists the world has ever produced, Leo Tolstoy began his work in long-form fiction with a series of three novels based loosely on his own life experiences. In Childhood, Tolstoy recounts the innocent joys of his early life and the gradual progression toward a more cynical, mature adult view of the world , a process that the author regards as tragic.
Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth
Begun in 1851, when Tolstoy was twenty-three and serving as a cadet in the Russian army, Childhood, the first part of Tolstoy?s first novel, won immediate praise from Turgenev and others, and marked Tolstoy?s emergence as a major writer. Its originality was striking, as Tolstoy sought to communicate with great immediacy the ?poetry? of childhood?the intense emotions, confusions, and fears attendant upon a young boy, Nikolenka, as he grows up. In the years following, Boyhood and Youth appeared (a fourth volume was planned but never executed), each replete with psychological and philosophical subtleties hitherto unknown in Russian literature. In Scammell?s resplendent translation, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth remains one of Tolstoy?s major works.
Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth
Begun in 1851, when Tolstoy was twenty-three and serving as a cadet in the Russian army, Childhood, the first part of Tolstoy?s first novel, won immediate praise from Turgenev and others, and marked Tolstoy?s emergence as a major writer. Its originality was striking, as Tolstoy sought to communicate with great immediacy the ?poetry? of childhood?the intense emotions, confusions, and fears attendant upon a young boy, Nikolenka, as he grows up. In the years following, Boyhood and Youth appeared (a fourth volume was planned but never executed), each replete with psychological and philosophical subtleties hitherto unknown in Russian literature. In Scammell?s resplendent translation, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth remains one of Tolstoy?s major works.
Fathers and Sons
With an Introduction by Lionel Kelly, University of Reading Translated by C.J. Hogarth. 'Fathers and Sons' is one of the greatest nineteenth century Russian novels, and has long been acclaimed as Turgenev's finest work. It is a political novel set in a domestic context, with a universal theme, the generational divide between fathers and sons. Set in 1859 at the moment when the Russian autocratic state began to move hesitantly towards social and political reform, the novel explores the conflict between the liberal-minded fathers of Russian reformist sympathies and their free-thinking intellectual sons whose revolutionary ideology threatened the stability of the state. At its centre is Evgeny Bazorov, a strong-willed antagonist of all forms of social orthodoxy who proclaims himself a nihilist and believes in the need to overthrow all the institutions of the state. As the novel develops Bazarov's political ambitions become fatally meshed with emotional and private concerns, and his end is a tragic failure. The novel caused a bitter furore on its publication in 1862, and this, a year later, drove Turgenev from Russia. AUTHOR: van Turgenev (1818 -1883) was the first Russian author to achieve international fame, and is ranked with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as the three great Russian novelists of the nineteenth century. 'Fathers and Sons' is his most enduring work.
Notes From the Underground
Notes from the Underground is a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Notes is considered by many to be the first existentialist novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man) who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. The first part of the story is told in monologue form, or the underground man's diary, and attacks emerging Western philosophy, especially Nikolay Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done?. The second part of the book is called "?propos of the Wet Snow", and describes certain events that, it seems, are destroying and sometimes renewing the underground man, who acts as a first person, unreliable narrator. Dostoyevsky again confronts the concept of free will and constructs a negative argument to validate free will against determinism in the character Kirillov's suicide in his novel The Demons. Notes from Underground marks the starting point of Dostoyevsky's move from psychological and sociological themed novels to novels based on existential and general human experience in crisis. War is described as people's rebellion against the assumption that everything needs to happen for a purpose, because humans do things without purpose, and this is what determines human history. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called Dostoevsky "the only psychologist, incidentally, from whom I had anything to learn."
Resurrection
Leo Tolstoy's last completed novel, Resurrection is an intimate, psychological tale of guilt, anger and forgiveness, translated from the Russian with an introduction and notes by Anthony Briggs in Penguin Classics. Serving on the jury at a murder trial, Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov is devastated when he sees the prisoner - Katyusha, a young maid he seduced and abandoned years before. As Dmitri faces the consequences of his actions, he decides to give up his life of wealth and luxury to devote himself to rescuing Katyusha, even if it means following her into exile in Siberia. But can a man truly find redemption by saving another person? Tolstoy's most controversial novel, Resurrection (1899) is a scathing indictment of injustice, corruption and hypocrisy at all levels of society. Creating a vast panorama of Russian life, from peasants to aristocrats, bureaucrats to convicts, it reveals Tolstoy's magnificent storytelling powers. Anthony Briggs' superb new translation preserves Tolstoy's gripping realism and satirical humour. In his introduction, Briggs discusses the true story behind Resurrection, Tolstoy's political and religious reasons for writing the novel, his gift for characterization and the compelling psychological portrait of Dmitri. This edition also includes a chronology, notes and a summary of chapters. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) spent his youth in wasteful idleness until 1851, when he travelled to the Caucasus and joined the army with his older brother, fighting in the Crimean war. After marrying in 1862, Tolstoy settled down, managing his estates and writing two of his best-known novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1878). A Confession (1879-82) marked a spiritual crisis in his life, and in 1901 he was excommunicated by the Russian Holy Synod. He died in 1910, in the course of a dramatic flight from home, at the small railway station of Astapovo. If you enjoyed Resurrection, you might like Ivan Goncharov's Oblomov, also available in Penguin Classics.
The Lower Depths
This compelling 1902 play, considered Gorky's masterpiece, centers on a group of wretched souls who congregate to play cards, tell stories, and debate whether it is better to live without illusions or to maintain a romanticized worldview. A powerful, influential drama, hailed for its realistic and memorable characterizations.
The Notebooks for the Idiot
"This is an invaluable aid to the understanding not only of the finished work of art, but also of Dostoyevsky's strangely tortured yet confident creative process."?Modern Fiction Studies."Superbly edited by Edward Wasiolek and well translated (despite difficult problems of rendering) by Katharine Strelsky."?The New York Times Book Review.The central idea of The Idiot, according to its author, was "to depict a completely beautiful human being." More prosaically, the novel was intended to shore up Dostoyevsky's professional and financial state. The portrait of Prince Myshkin, a holy fool, was created in desperation amidst the squalid poverty engendered by the Russian writer's compulsive gambling. Dostoyevsky's entire future depended on the success of his next novel, which began as one story and ended as quite another. After publishing the first part of The Idiot in The Russian Messenger, Dostoyevsky had no idea how to continue the story. The second part, in fact, is a quite different novel. The author's notebooks reveal at least eight plans for the tale, with numerous variations on each plan. A unique document of the creative process, this volume is illustrated by facsimiles of original pages from the notebooks, offering a rich source of information about the development of Dostoyevsky's enigmatic novel.www.doverpublications.com