Showing results by author "Leo Tolstoy" in All Categories

At a glittering society party in St Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon’s army marches on Russia, and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey, and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants, to soldiers and Napoleon himself.

This audiobook contains two of Tolstoy's most celebrated stories. "The Diary of a Madman" and "The Devil" are partially autobiographical. Both involve journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious questioning that are also themes of Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy.

In the town of Surat, in India, was a coffeehouse where many travellers and foreigners from all parts of the world met and conversed. One day a learned Persian theologian visited this coffeehouse. He was a man who had spent his life studying the nature of the deity and reading and writing books upon the subject. He had thought, read, and written so much about God that eventually he lost his wits, became quite confused and ceased even to believe in the existence of a god. Read in English, unabridged.

Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. Tolstoy considered this book to be his first real attempt at a novel form, and it addresses the very nature of society at all levels - of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence.

This book contains instructive stories - a collection of fine stories and parables on the theme of morality - by the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910).

In this novella, Tolstoy brilliantly shows how a single crime - the counterfeiting of currency (coupons) - leads to a whole series of bloody crimes and death.

A story of a successful farmer, Ilyas, who grew into one of the wealthiest in the area only to lose it all through series of bad accidents. He finds his happiness, however, only after losing all his possessions and achieving peace for himself and his wife. Read in English, unabridged.

"The Death of Ivan Ilyich", first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, one of the masterpieces of his late fiction, written shortly after his religious conversion of the late 1870s.

The novel tells the story of the death, at age 45, of a high court judge in 19th century Russia. Living what seems to be a good life, his dreadful relationship with his wife notwithstanding, Ivan Ilyich Golovin bangs his side while putting up curtains in a new apartment intended to reflect his family's superior status in society.

"Voskresenie" - poslednij roman L'va Nikolaevicha Tolstogo, napisannyj im v 1889-1899 godah. Roman prakticheski srazu za publikaciej byl perevedyon na osnovnye evropejskie yazyki. Podobnyj uspekh vo mnogom ob'yasnyalsya ostrotoj vybrannoj temy (sud'ba soblaznyonnoj i broshennoj oficerom devushki, chuvstvo viny pered kotoroj vposledstvii stanovitsya povodom izmeneniya zhiznej ih oboih) i kolossal'nym interesom k tvorchestvu Tolstogo, kotoryj ne pechatal romanov posle "Vojny i mira" i "Anny Kareninoj".

This short novel, published after Tolstoy's death, is the last novel the great author wrote. It tells the true story of Hadji Murad (or Hadji Murat, alternatively), an Avar who commanded the peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya in their resistance against assimilation into the Russian empire. Tolstoy had first heard of Murad during his travels, and the author became inspired by Murad's refusal to give in to the demands of a corrupt world. Hadji Murad shares many of the same themes found in War and Peace.

Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all novelists for such works as War and Peace and Anna Karenina. He also wrote a number of outstanding short stories. This is one of his best.

In the setting of what is present-day Kazakhstan, Tolstoy examines two psychological problems. The first dilemma is that of a young man who desires both fulfilling love and a place as a respected member of society. The other is the difficulty of a primitive society to accept domination by a higher culture that has no understanding of the traditions it asks its colonists to cast aside.

An abridged version of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. Anna (Bergman) is a wife and mother who has an affair with the handsome Count Vronsky (Peck).

Leo Tolstoy is widely recognized as one of the world's greatest novelists and short story writers and a master of realistic fiction. He is equally known for his complex and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, developed following a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became known for his deep moral thinking and social reforms.

Tolstoy's final work - a gripping novella about the struggle between the Muslim Chechens and their inept occupiers - is a powerful moral fable for our time. Inspired by a historical figure Tolstoy heard about while serving in the Caucasus, this story brings to life the famed warrior Hadji Murat, a Chechen rebel who has fought fiercely and courageously against the Russian empire. After a feud with his commander, he defects to the Russians, only to find that he is now trusted by neither side.

En 1928 durante la invasión de Napoleón a Rusia, cinco familias, algunas pobres y otras aristocráticas viven con miseria y tragedia de perder a sus seres queridos en la guerra.

Martin is an old cobbler with a good trade, but he has had a hard life. His soul is now embittered against God. When he hears a mysterious voice calling him in the middle of the night, his soul seems to lighten and awaken to answer the call.

The Forged Coupon is a novella in two parts by Leo Tolstoy. Though he first conceived of the story in the late 1890s, he did not begin writing it until 1902. After struggling for several years, he finally completed the story in 1904; however, it was not published until some of Tolstoy's shorter works were collected and anthologized after his death in 1910.

Auf einer nächtlichen Bahnreise durch Russland entspinnt sich zwischen den Fahrgästen ein Gespräch über Gesellschaft, Liebe, Ehe und Moral. Da macht Gutsbesitzer Posdnyschew seinen Mitreisenden ein aufwühlendes Geständnis: Seine Ehe endete katastrophal, von maßloser Eifersucht zerfressen hat er seiner Frau das Leben genommen.

God Sees the Truth, But Waits engages a subject that would have suited Dostoyevsky. But Dostoyevsky would have written it with a tone of fist-waving anger and frustration, while Tolstoy wrote this story with an accepting, non-violent attitude toward the grievances described. The protagonist has been wrongly accused of murder, separated from his family for 26 years, and by circumstance meets the real murderer in Siberia.