The complete works of Leo Tolstoy in one definitive volume. Over 2.5 million words. Every novel, novella, play, philosophical treatise, and tale — the entire arc of the most ambitious literary life of the nineteenth century.
For the first time in a single edition, the entirety of Tolstoy’s literary corpus is gathered here: the three great novels, the autobiographical trilogy, the war stories, the moral parables, the late plays, the philosophical writings that made Gandhi a disciple, and the diaries of a soul in permanent crisis.
The three great novels:
War and Peace (1869) — In the Maude translation Tolstoy himself authorized. The Russian Iliad: 580,000 words across the Napoleonic invasions, four families, and the most ambitious historical novel ever written.Anna Karenina (1877) — In the celebrated Constance Garnett translation. The novel of which Faulkner said: “the best ever written.”Resurrection (1899) — Tolstoy’s final novel. Prince Nekhlyudov, the woman he ruined, and the long road through the Siberian prison system.The shorter fiction:
The Cossacks — The Caucasian masterpiece of Tolstoy’s youthThe Death of Ivan Ilyich — The most piercing novella ever written about dyingThe Kreutzer Sonata — The scandal novella about marriage, jealousy, and musicMaster and Man · Father Sergius · The Devil · The Forged Coupon · Family HappinessSevastopol Sketches — Tolstoy’s eyewitness account of the Crimean WarChildhood · Boyhood · Youth — The autobiographical trilogyThe complete Fables for Children, the moral tales, the late storiesThe plays: The Power of Darkness, Fruits of Culture, The Living Corpse, The Light Shines in Darkness, and the shorter dramas.
The philosophical and religious writings: What Is Art? · The Kingdom of God Is Within You (the book that converted Gandhi to nonviolence) · My Religion · A Letter to a Hindu · Bethink Yourselves · Tolstoy on Shakespeare
Plus selected pages from The Journal of Leo Tolstoy (1895–1899).
Why this edition?
The translations gathered here are the finest available in the public domain. Louise and Aylmer Maude — the only English translators Tolstoy himself authorized, his personal friends at Yasnaya Polyana — render War and Peace, Resurrection, and the late writings in the versions Tolstoy declared definitive. Constance Garnett — the translator through whom Hemingway, Faulkner, and Woolf first encountered Tolstoy — renders Anna Karenina in the classic version that has remained in print for over 120 years.
This Erato Press edition includes:
The complete fiction, plays, and philosophical writings — unabridgedAn extensive critical introduction — Flesh and Spirit: Reading Tolstoy’s Complete WorksBiographical portrait of TolstoyA full chronology of his life and writings
