> Skip to content
[]
  • Published: 17 October 2006
  • ISBN: 9780140449594
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $26.99

The Cossacks and Other Stories




Part of the Penguin Classics' fresh new editions of Tolstoy's major works - including Antony Briggs' stunning new translation of War and Peace

In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Tolstoy joined the Russian army and travelled to the Caucasus as a soldier. The four years that followed were among the most significant in his life, and deeply influenced the stories collected here. Begun in 1852 but unfinished for a decade, The Cossacks describes the experiences of Olenin, a young cultured Russian who comes to despise civilization after spending time with the wild Cossack people. Sevastopol Sketches, based on Tolstoy's own experiences of the siege of Sevastopol in 1854-55, is a compelling consideration of the nature of war, while Hadji Murat, written towards the end of his life, returns to the Caucasus of Tolstoy's youth to explore the life of a great leader torn apart by a conflict of loyalties. Written at the end of the nineteenth century, it is amongst the last and greatest of Tolstoy's shorter works.

  • Published: 17 October 2006
  • ISBN: 9780140449594
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 528
  • RRP: $26.99

Other books in the series

Emma
Persuasion
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
Selected Poetry
On Sparta
Man and Superman
Saint Joan
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 in the Tula province. He studied at the University of Kazan, then led a life of pleasure until 1851 when he joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus. He established his reputation as a writer with The Sebastopol Sketches (1855-6). After a period in St Petersburg and abroad, he married, had thirteen children, managed his vast estates in the Volga Steppes and wrote War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). A Confession (1879-82) marked a spiritual crisis in his life, and in 1901 he was excommuincated by the Russian Holy Synod. He died in 1910, in the course of a dramatic flight from home, at the railway station of Astapovo.

Also by Leo Tolstoy

See all
penguin pop image
penguin pop image