: Leo Tolstoy
: War and Peace, Cossacks, Plays, etc.
: Seltzer Books
: 9781455393381
: 1
: CHF 0.10
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 1123
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

This file includes: Father Sergius, Master and Man, What Men Live by and Other Tales, The Cause of It All, The First Distiller, Fruits of Culture, The Light Shines in Darkness, The Live Corpse, The Power of Darkness, and War and Peace. According to Wikipedia: 'Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (September 9 [O.S. August 28] 1828 - November 20 [O.S. November 7] 1910), was a Russian writer widely regarded as among the greatest of novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist fiction. Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist, and educational reformer made him the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family. His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.' Also according to Wikipedia: 'Aylmer Maude (28 March 1858 - 25 August 1938) and Louise Maude (1855-1939) were English translators of Tolstoy's works, and Aylmer Maude also wrote his friend Tolstoy's biography. After living many years in Russia the Maudes spent the rest of their life in England translating Tolstoy's writing and promoting public interest in his work. Aylmer Maude was also involved in a number of early 20th century progressive and idealistic causes.'

WAR AND PEACE, THE COSSACKS, 6 PLAYS, PLUS STORIES AND NOVELLAS BY TOLSTOY


 

translated by Aylmer and Louise Maude

 

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Published by Seltzer Books. seltzerbooks.com

established in 1974, as B&R Samizdat Express

offering over 14,000 books

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Novellas and Stories

Father Sergius

Master and Man

What Men Live by and Other Tales

 

Plays

The Cause of It All

The First Distiller

Fruits of Culture

The Light Shines in Darkness

The Live Corpse

The Power of Darkness

 

Novels

War and Peace

The Cossacks

 

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FATHER SERGIUS


By Leo Tolstoy

 

I

 

In Petersburg in the eighteen-forties a surprising event occurred. An officer of the Cuirassier Life Guards, a handsome prince who everyone predicted would become aide-de-camp to the Emperor Nicholas I and have a brilliant career, left the service, broke off his engagement to a beautiful maid of honour, a favourite of the Empress's, gave his small estate to his sister, and retired to a monastery to become a monk.

 

This event appeared extraordinary and inexplicable to those who did not know his inner motives, but for Prince Stepan Kasatsky himself it all occurred so naturally that he could not imagine how he could have acted otherwise.

 

His father, a retired colonel of the Guards, had died when Stepan was twelve, and sorry as his mother was to part from her son, she entered him at the Military College as her deceased husband had intended.

 

The widow herself, with her daughter, Varvara, moved to Petersburg to be near her son and have him with her for the holidays.

 

The boy was distinguished both by his brilliant ability and by his immense self-esteem. He was first both in his studies--especially in mathematics, of which he was particularly fond--and also in drill and in riding. Though of more than average height, he was handsome and agile, and he would have been an altogether exemplary cadet had it not been for his quick temper. He was remarkably truthful, and was neither dissipated nor addicted to drink. The only faults that marred his conduct were fits of fury to which he was subject and during which he lost control of himself and became like a wild animal. He once nearly threw out of the window another cadet who had begun to tease him about his collection of minerals. On another occasion he came almost completely to grief by flinging a whole dish of cutlets at an officer who was acting as steward, attacking him and, it was said, striking him for having broken his word and told a barefaced lie. He would certainly have been reduced to the ranks had not the Director of the College hushed up the whole matter and dismissed the steward.

 

By the time he was eighteen he had finished his College course and received a commission as lieutenant in an aristocratic regiment of the Guards.

 

The Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich (Nicholas I) had noticed him while he was still at the College, and continued to take notice of him in