Childhood (1852) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy. Published at the beginning of his career as a leading Russian author of his generation, Childhood is the first in a trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels tracing Nikolenka's journey from innocence to experience. As a record of the past, a nostalgic reminder of a lost world, Childhood is one of Tolstoy's most personal works, and yet his prose shows signs of the universal religious and philosophical themes...

Anna Karenina is often referred to as a pinnacle of realist fiction and flawless work of art embedding Tolstoy's true stylistic magic. Leo Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina his first true novel which follows life of a married socialite and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The novel explores a diverse range of topics from politics to family, religion, morality, gender, social class and romance. The novel consists of eight volumes....

Four short stories by Leo Tolstoy.

A famous legend surrounding the creation of Anna Karenina tells us that Tolstoy began writing a cautionary tale about adultery and ended up by falling in love with his magnificent heroine. It is rare to find a reader of the book who doesn't experience the same kind of emotional upheaval: Anna Karenina is filled with major and minor characters who exist in their own right and fully embody their mid-nineteenth-century Russian milieu, but it still belongs...

Ivan Ilych, a peaceful public official in the Russian provinces, has his life permanently changed by a serious illness which no doctor can accurately diagnose. Includes three of the Russian author's other stories.

In nineteenth-century Russia, the wife of an important government official loses her family and social status when she chooses the love of Count Vronsky over a passionless marriage.

As a result of his controversial works criticizing the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church, Tolstoy was excommunicated in 1901. Tolstoy dismissed the event lightly as he continued his search for a practical religion. "A Confession and Other Religious Works" is the product of years of introspection, resulting in a drastic reorientation of Tolstoy's beliefs and values. He felt undeserving of the wealth and fame he had accumulated, while...

Nikolai asks his animal friends to help him answer three important questions: "When is the best time to do things?" "Who is the most important?" and "What is the right thing to do?"