The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Other Stories

Tolstoy, Leo; Pevear and Volokhonsky [Translators]

ISBN 10: 0307268810 / ISBN 13: 9780307268815

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2009

A Near Fine Book in a Very Good+ Dust Jacket, Unclipped ($28.95). Book is lightly shelf worn and moderately sunned to extremities. Front board has a few scuffs. Text block remains bright and fresh, fore edge deckled. Rear pastedown is bubbled near gutter, presumably a production error. Text is unmarked. Binding is tight and square. Peter Mendelsund designed dust jacket is moderately shelf worn with a few small bumped to extremities. Jacket is moderately toned and generally sunned to spine. Cream panels show some scuffing and light soiling. Hardcover. Octavo. [xxi], [4], 5-499pp. + [2]. Publisher's Red Orange Boards with Gilt Detailing. Seller Inventory # 437

Synopsis:

A vibrant translation of Tolstoy’s most important short fiction by the award-winning translators of War and Peace.
 
Here are eleven masterful stories from the mature author, some autobiographical, others moral parables, and all told with the evocative power that was Tolstoy’s alone.  They include “The Prisoner of the Caucasus,” inspired by Tolstoy's own experiences as a soldier in the Chechen War, “Hadji Murat,” the novella Harold Bloom called “the best story in the world,” “The Devil,” a fascinating tale...

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Review: Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2009: To anyone for whom Leo Tolstoy's masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina have stood as giants too daunting to scale, and equally to the many readers who have devoured those novels and are hungry for more, we offer The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. Newly translated by the team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, who have enlivened the Russian classics for a new generation, this selection of 11 of his finest stories reveals a Tolstoy of many sides and unsurpassed storytelling talents. Along with smaller gems like "Alyosha the Pot," the collection features a handful of thrilling longer tales that each carry the power of a novel: the terrifying murderer's confession of "The Kreuzer Sonata," the breathlessly dramatic path of a single crime through dozens of lives in "The Forged Coupon," and the haunting account of the isolation of mortality in the legendary title story. Most revelatory of all for a modern reader is the final novella, and Tolstoy's final work, "Hadji Murat," the disturbingly contemporary story of a fiercely honorable Chechen warrior caught between local rivalries and the ambivalent reach of a decadent empire. --Tom Nissley

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Death of Ivan Ilyich & Other Stories
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Publication Date: 2009
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+
Edition: First Edition Thus, First Printing.