'It is impossible to explain why Yevgeny chose Liza Annenskaya, as it is always impossible to explain why a man chooses this and not that woman.' This collection of eleven stories spans virtually the whole of Tolstoy's creative life. While each is unique in form, as a group they are representative of his style, and touch on the central themes that surface in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Stories as different as 'The Snowstorm', 'Lucerne', 'The Diary of a Madman', and 'The Devil' are grounded in autobiographical experience. They deal with journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious questioning that characterizes Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy. 'Strider' and 'Father Sergy', as well as reflecting Tolstoy's own experiences, also reveal profound psychological insights. These stories range over much of the Russian world of the nineteenth century, from the nobility to the peasantry, the military to the clergy, from merchants and cobblers to a horse and a tree. Together they present a fascinating picture of Tolstoy's skill and artistry. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

One of Tolstoy's most exquisitely constructed novellas is presented here with The Devil,a further work exploring the powerful and destructive nature of obsession. On learning of Ivan Ilyich's sudden demise, his former colleagues begin vying for promotion; it seems in neither life nor death has Ivan Ilyich made any lasting impression. And, as the author takes us back to Ilyich's early days, we are shown a life of futility, emptiness, and spiritual barrenness. Yet, in the end, Tolstoy reveals Ivan Ilyich's final resolute gesture to come to terms with his mortality and to embrace his impending death. Leo Tolstoy wrote two of Russia's greatest novels, Anna Kareninaand War and Peace,as well as many short stories and essays.

What Is Love? “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral.” - Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata Upon hearing a woman arguing that marriage should never be arranged and always be subject to love, Pozdnyshev asks: ‘What is love?’ He condemns the argument saying that love doesn’t last forever and can quickly turn into hatred. What is Pozdnyshev’s story? Why doesn’t he believe in love? Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes

The judge Ivan Ilyich Golovin has spent his life in the pursuit of wealth and status, devoting himself obsessively to work and often neglecting his family in the process. When, after a small accident, he fails to make the expected recovery, it gradually becomes clear that he is soon to die. Ivan Ilyich then starts to question the futility and barrenness of his previous existence, realizing to his horror, as he grapples with the meaning of life and death, that he is totally alone.Included in this volume is another celebrated novella by Tolstoy, The Devil, which addresses the conflicts between desire, social norms and personal conscience, providing at the same time a further exploration of human fear and obsession.

A new translation into modern American English directly from the original Russian manuscript. This edition contains an Afterword by the translator, a timeline of Tolstoy's life and works, and a glossary of philosophic terminology used throughout Tolstoy's literature and philosophy. "The Devil" by Leo Tolstoy, also known as "Devil," is a thought-provoking novella that grapples with profound moral and philosophical questions. Published posthumously in 1911, it was written in 1889 and given an alternate ending in 1909. "The Devil" deals with the consequences of sexual feelings, as does Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata", written at the same time.The novella is a tragedy. Eugene Irtenev inherits a debt-laden estate and immerses himself in its management. Feeling lonely, he engages in a paid affair with a local peasant woman, Stepanida, but eventually marries Liza Annenskaya, a middle-class girl. Despite a seemingly stable life, including a newborn daughter and a prospering estate, the re-emergence of Stepanida in their household rekindles Eugene's passion for her. Torn between guilt and desire, Eugene contemplates murdering Stepanida, his wife, or himself. Ultimately, he chooses the third, leaving his family baffled by his despair, as he never confided in them about his inner turmoil. Compare this work to Dostoevsky's classic Demons, which similarly describes the parasitic nature of socio-political ideologies like Socialism and Post-Modernism, and the destructive nature of Epicureanism when Stoic dispassion is abandoned.

Before The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, there was The Case Against Satan By the twentieth century, the exorcism had all but vanished, wiped out by modern science and psychology. But Ray Russell—praised by Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro as a sophisticated practitioner of Gothic fiction—resurrected the ritual with his classic 1962 horror novel, The Case Against Satan, giving new rise to the exorcism on page, screen, and even in real life. Teenager Susan Garth was “a clean-talking sweet little girl” of high school age before she started having “fits”—a sudden aversion to churches and a newfound fondness for vulgarity. Then one night, she strips in front of the parish priest and sinks her nails into his throat. If not madness, then the answer must be demonic possession. To vanquish the Devil, Bishop Crimmings recruits Father Gregory Sargent, a younger priest with a taste for modern ideas and brandy. As the two men fight not just the darkness tormenting Susan but also one another, a soul-chilling revelation lurks in the shadows—one that knows that the darkest evil goes by many names. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

What do Socrates, Hypatia, Giordano Bruno, Thomas More, and Jan Patocka have in common? First, they were all faced one day with the most difficult of choices: stay faithful to your ideas and die or renounce them and stay alive. Second, they all chose to die. Their spectacular deaths have become not only an integral part of their biographies, but are also inseparable from their work. A "death for ideas" is a piece of philosophical work in its own right; Socrates may have never written a line, but his death is one of the greatest philosophical best-sellers of all time. Dying for Ideas explores the limit-situation in which philosophers find themselves when the only means of persuasion they can use is their own dying bodies and the public spectacle of their death. The book tells the story of the philosopher's encounter with death as seen from several angles: the tradition of philosophy as an art of living; the body as the site of self-transcending; death as a classical philosophical topic; taming death and self-fashioning; finally, the philosophers' scapegoating and their live performance of a martyr's death, followed by apotheosis and disappearance into myth. While rooted in the history of philosophy, Dying for Ideas is an exercise in breaking disciplinary boundaries. This is a book about Socrates and Heidegger, but also about Gandhi's "fasting unto death" and self-immolation; about Girard and Passolini, and self-fashioning and the art of the essay.