Showing results by author "Leo Tolstoy" in All Categories

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

This collection of 11 stories spans virtually the whole of Tolstoy's creative life. While each is unique in form, as a group they are representative of his style, and touch on the central themes that surface in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Stories as different as "The Snowstorm", "Lucerne", "The Diary of a Madman", and "The Devil" are grounded in autobiographical experience. They deal with journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious thought that characterizes Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy.

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume One is a continent-hopping, century-spanning collection of 15 essential classic novels by British, American, and Russian authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Stephen Fry, Jason Isaacs, Adjoa Andoh, David Rintoul, and many more.

One of the world’s greatest novelists, Leo Tolstoy was also the author of a number of superb short stories, one of his best known being “The Kreutzer Sonata.” This macabre story involves the murder of a wife by her husband. It is a penetrating study of jealousy as well as a piercing complaint about the way in which society educates men and women in matters of sex - a serious condemnation of the mores and attitudes of the wealthy, educated class.

Tolstoy claims that all good art is related to the authentic life of the broader community and that the aesthetic value of a work of art is not independent of its moral content.

Vladimir Nabokov called Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina "one of the greatest love stories in world literature." Set in imperial Russia, Anna Karenina is a rich and complex meditation on passionate love and disastrous infidelity. Married to a powerful government minister, Anna Karenina is a beautiful woman who falls deeply in love with a wealthy army officer, the elegant Count Vronsky.

Paterson Joseph, John Hurt, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter are among the cast of BBC Radio 4's epic full-cast dramatisation. Adapted for radio by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Leo Tolstoy's epic story follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. First broadcast on New Year's Day 2015, the drama also features Alun Armstrong, Natasha Little, David Calder, Phoebe Fox, Sam Reid and Joanna David. Duration: 10 hours approx.

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

As this stranger comes to live and work with the cobbler and his family, he learns the foundations of humanity and love. As a witness to several different encounters with this family, he begins to understand that man’s very existence and continued survival depends on love. Tolstoy brings the beauty of Christ’s wisdom and love to this simple story of generosity and good will. This work inspires true reflection into love’s role in life and even more so into God’s role in the lives of all men.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy is a philosophical treatise first published in Germany in 1894 after being banned in his home country of Russia. The work is the culmination of 30 years of Tolstoy's thinking, and sets out rules for a new organization of society, based on an interpretation of Christianity which focuses on universal love. In a bold and original way, Tolstoy shows his audiences why violence of any type - even that sanctioned by the state or the church - must be rejected.

Grab yourself a hot chocolate and get cosy for a collection of wintery Christmas stories that will have your little ones dreaming of Santa Claus and his reindeers.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich - first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, considered one of the masterpieces of his late fiction, written shortly after his religious conversion of the late 1870s. Usually classed among the best examples of the novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich tells the story of a high-court judge in 19th-century Russia and his sufferings and death from a terminal illness.

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Many writers consider Anna Karenina the greatest work of literature ever, and Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger. A complex novel in eight parts, with more than a dozen major characters, it is spread over more than 800 pages (depending on the translation and publisher), typically contained in two volumes.

Grab yourselves a hot chocolate, a warm blanket and settle down to a collection of entertaining Christmas Stories that will get your little ones in the spirit of Christmas. Each of these traditional tales are the perfect length for listening at quiet time, bedtime and the classroom.

The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirées alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed. The prodigious cast of characters, both great and small, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence.

Blending fact and fiction, this trilogy by a very young Tolstoy centres on the inner life of Nikolai as he navigates the universal challenge of growing up. In relating his thoughts and feelings, his self-awareness and embarrassing mistakes, the work is timeless: regardless of era, location and environment, we are given an unvarnished portrait of one boy—both self-important and self-deprecating—as he tries to find his place in the world. The sense of nostalgia, with its strange blend of sadness and solace, is tangible as the years pass and the child becomes a young man.

Resurrection is the last of Tolstoy's major novels. It tells the story of a nobleman's attempt to redeem the suffering his youthful philandering inflicted on a peasant girl who ends up a prisoner in Siberia. Tolstoy's vision of redemption, achieved through loving forgiveness and his condemnation of violence, dominate the novel. An intimate, psychological tale of guilt, anger, and forgiveness, Resurrection is at the same time a panoramic description of social life in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century.

The heroine of Tolstoy's epic of love and self-destruction, Anna Karenina has beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son, but feels that her life is empty until she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalises society and family alike, and brings jealousy and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.

A Confession is a beautiful and thorough dive into that timeless question, “What is the meaning of life?”. After fifty-one years of life and during the height of his fame, Tolstoy began to question everything. Through a creative and insightful analogy, Tolstoy depicts the crisis of reality that emerges when one questions the existence of God. An existence that he had been taught since childhood and had followed along with his whole life. He uses deduction and logic, rationality and reason, then allows for emotions and reactions and is ultimately able to land on the answers to his questions.

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Many writers consider Anna Karenina the greatest work of literature ever, and Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger. A complex novel in eight parts, with more than a dozen major characters, it is spread over more than 800 pages (depending on the translation and publisher), typically contained in two volumes.