The Death Of Ivan Ilyich
  • Published: 1 January 1981
  • ISBN: 9780553210354
  • Imprint: Bantam Dell
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $15.99

The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

Little Black Classics

Formats & editions
Paperback
2 May 2016
EBook
3 Mar 2016
Paperback
15 Oct 2012
Paperback
1 Jan 1981
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Laying humanity bare, these two devastating stories ask: is it possible to have a good death? And what does it mean to truly live?

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.
  • Published: 1 January 1981
  • ISBN: 9780553210354
  • Imprint: Bantam Dell
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $15.99
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About the author

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia in 1828. He studied Oriental languages and law (although failed to earn a degree in the latter) at the University of Kazan, and after a dissolute youth eventually joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus in 1851. He took part in the Crimean War, and the Sebastopol Sketches that emerged from it established his reputation. After living for some time in St Petersburg and abroad, he married Sophie Behrs in 1862 and they had thirteen children. The happiness this brought him gave him the creative impulse for his two greatest novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Later in life his views became increasingly radical as he gave up his possessions to live a simple peasant life. After a quarrel with his wife he fled home secretly one night to seek refuge in a monastery. He became ill during this dramatic flight and died at the small railway station of Astapovo in 1910.

Also by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina
Hadji Murat
The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth
War and Peace (Vintage Classic Russians Series)
Android Karenina
Last Steps
See all