While there are many courses and tutorials online, learning from a book is still one of the best ways to greatly improve your skills. Below I have selected top Tolstoy books.
- War and Peace (Vintage Classics) (2008)
- Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy (Perennial Classics) (2004)
- The Kingdom of God is Within You (2016)
- Anna Karenina (Wonders of the World) (2002)
- A Confession and Other Religious Writings (Penguin Classics) (1988)
- Anna Karenina (Great illustrated classics: Titan editions) (1966)
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Bantam Classics) (1981)
- Anna Karenina (Modern Library Classics) (2000)
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (Vintage Classics) (2010)
- Resurrection (Penguin Classics) (2009)
- Anna Karenina (Wordsworth Classics) (1997)
War and Peace (Vintage Classics) (2008)
broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.A s Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows char…
Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy (Perennial Classics) (2004)
The brilliant shorter novels of Tolstoy, including The Death of Ivan Ilych and Family Happiness, collected and reissued with a beautiful updated design. Of all Russian writers Leo Tolstoy is probably the best known to the Western world, largely because of War and Peace, his epic in prose, and Anna Karenina, one of the most splendid novels in any language. But during his long lifetime Tolstoy also wrote enough shorter works to fill many volumes.
The Kingdom of God is Within You (2016)
“The Kingdom of God Is Within You” is Leo Tolstoy’s magnum opus of philosophy and religious thought. The book is cited by Mahatma Gandhi as one of the chief influences in the development of his philosophy of non-violence. Tolstoy takes the reader to the heart of the message of Jesus Christ, laying aside the common dogmas of the church in favor of a literal understanding of Christ’s teachings.
Anna Karenina (Wonders of the World) (2002)
‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Acclaimed by many as the world’s greatest novel, Anna Kerenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as a wife and turns to her lover Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature -with tragic consequences.
A Confession and Other Religious Writings (Penguin Classics) (1988)
Tolstoy’s passionate and iconoclastic writings–on issues of faith, immortality, freedom, violence, and morality–reflect his intellectual search for truth and a religion firmly grounded in reality. The selection includes ‘A Confession,’ ‘Religion and Morality,’ ‘What Is Religion, and of What Does Its Essence Consist?,’ and ‘The Law of Love and the Law of Violence.’For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world.
Anna Karenina (Great illustrated classics: Titan editions) (1966)
Great Illustrated Classic from Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Bantam Classics) (1981)
Hailed as one of the world’s supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, 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.
Anna Karenina (Modern Library Classics) (2000)
Considered by some to be the greatest novel ever written, Anna Karenina is Tolstoy’s classic tale of love and adultery set against the backdrop of high society in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A rich and complex masterpiece, the novel charts the disastrous course of a love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (Vintage Classics) (2010)
A vibrant translation of Tolstoy’s most important short fiction by the award-winning translators of War and Peace. Here are eleven masterful stories from the mature author, some autobiographical, others moral parables, and all told with the evocative power that was Tolstoy’s alone. They include “The Prisoner of the Caucasus,” inspired by Tolstoy’s own experiences as a soldier in the Chechen War, “Hadji Murat,” the novella Harold Bloom called “…
Resurrection (Penguin Classics) (2009)
Serving on the jury at a murder trial, Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov is devastated when he sees the prisoner – Katyusha, a young maid he seduced and abandoned years before. As Dmitri faces the consequences of his actions, he decides to give up his life of wealth and luxury to devote himself to rescuing Katyusha, even if it means following her into exile in Siberia. But can a man truly find redemption by saving another person?
Anna Karenina (Wordsworth Classics) (1997)
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. Introduction and Notes by E.B. Greenwood, University of Kent Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. Tolstoy considered this book to be his first real attempt at a novel form, and it addresses the very nature of society at all levels,- of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence.
Best Tolstoy Books That You Need
We highly recommend you to buy all paper or e-books in a legal way, for example, on Amazon. But sometimes it might be a need to dig deeper beyond the shiny book cover. Before making a purchase, you can visit resources like Library Genesis and download some tolstoy books mentioned below at your own risk. Once again, we do not host any illegal or copyrighted files, but simply give our visitors a choice and hope they will make a wise decision.
Irène Némirovsky's Russian Influences: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov
Author(s): Marta Laura Cenedese
ID: 2831399, Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, Year: 2021, Size: 2 Mb, Format: pdf
Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature's Most Enigmatic Heroine
Author(s): Bob Blaisdell
ID: 2578773, Publisher: Pegasus Books, Year: 2020, Size: 13 Mb, Format: epub
Leo Tolstoy (Critical Lives)
Author(s): Andrei Zorin
ID: 2978717, Publisher: Reaktion Books, Year: 2020, Size: 6 Mb, Format: pdf
Please note that this booklist is not errorless. Some books are really record-breakers according to The New York Times, others are composed by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant resources you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.