Tales by Tolstoy

This collection gathers six of Tolstoy's shorter narratives from the 1850s through the 1880s: The Raid, Two Hussars, Three Deaths, Polikushka, The Death of Ivan Ilyitch, and Two Old Men. Soldiers, landowners, peasants, and officials appear in episodes of campaign, card-play, household tyranny, and dying. The pieces move from a Caucasus skirmish and cavalry swagger to a judge's last illness and a pair of pilgrims. Each tale is complete in itself. The volume is a sample of Tolstoy's fiction outside the long novels, not a continuous saga and not a selection of his religious tracts.

Quarter-bound in black cloth with red cloth covers. White dust-jacket printed in red and black. (First book published by the FS).