Resurrection

byLeo Tolstoy, Louise Maude (Translator), Andrew Kahn (Introducer)
A nobleman faces the consequences of his youthful wrongdoing when the girl he seduced and abandoned some years earlier is put on trial in a murder case. Initially conceived as a love story, Tolstoy’s last novel, published in 1899, is a dark masterpiece in which the whole of Imperial Russian society is tried and found wanting. Resurrection moves from the salons and country estates of the aristocracy to courtrooms and government offices, brothels and prisons; from Moscow and St Petersburg by road, rail and route march to the penal settlements of Siberia. Its pages are peopled with convicts and gaolers, revolutionaries and religious sectaries, soldiers, labourers and lawyers, peasants, priests and prostitutes. While for Prince Nekhlyudov and Katusha Maslova salvation through love proves problematic, the journey into exile becomes one of self-discovery and spiritual transformation.

About the series

The finest editions available of the world's greatest classics from Homer to Achebe, Tolstoy to Ishiguro, Proust to Pullman, printed on a fine acid-free, cream-wove paper that will not discolour with age, with sewn, full cloth bindings and silk ribbon markers, and at remarkably low prices. All books include substantial introductions by major scholars and contemporary writers, and comparative chronologies of literary and historical context.

Sweetness and light among shame and confusion. The greatest of all novels is Leo Tolstoy's final novel, Resurrection. Its effect upon a reader is immense and immediate.

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About Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia on 9 September 1828. In 1852 he published his first work, the autobiographical Childhood. He served in the army during the Crimean War and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6) are based on his experiences. His two most popular masterpieces are War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1875-8). He died in 1910.
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