Tolstoy, Leo

New York. 1977. Penguin Books. Reprinted Penguin Classic Paperback Edition. Very Good in Wrappers. 0140443312. Translated from the Russian & With An Introduction by Paul Foote. 271 pages. paperback. The cover shows a detail from 'Leo Tolstoy ploughing' by I. Repin, in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (photo: Novosti Press Agency, London). keywords: Penguin Classic Paperback Translated Literature Russia 19th Century. FROM THE PUBLISHER - These three stories were begun in the 1890s during the period when Tolstoy, tormented by questions of religion and morality, undertook literature almost as a guilty pleasure. He none the less put his highest art into them and only twinges of dogma. Both FATHER SERGIUS and MASTER AND MAN are preoccupied with material desires - for the flesh in one instance and in the other for money - although the first story, involving a dashing young officer turned monk, also bears out Tolstoy's assertion that ‘the struggle with lust is . . only a stage; the main struggle is with worldly fame'. HADJI MURAT stands apart in that Tolstoy lost all compulsion to moralize and, going back to the Caucasus where he spent his young manhood, gives us in a soldier-traitor one of his most memorable heroes. inventory #29298 ISBN: 0140443312.