Lev Tolstoy has held the attention of mankind for well over a century. A supremely talented artist, whose novels and short stories continue to entrance readers all over the world, he was at the same time a fearless moral philosopher who explored and challenged the fundamental bases of human societypolitical, economic, legal, and cultural. Hugh McLean, Professor Emeritus of Russian literature at the University of California, Berkeley, has been studying and writing about Tolstoy for many years....

Is there a sharp dividing line that separates Europe into "East" and "West"?This volume brings together prominent scholars from the United States, Canada, France, Poland, and Russia to examine the evolution of the concept of Europe in the two centuries between the French Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Inspired by the ideas of Martin Malia, the contributors take a flexible view of the "cultural gradient"-the emergence, interaction, and reception of ideas across Eur...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books'I decided that my trip had evidently been in vain, since nothing of interest could possibly occur on this visit. I was mistaken.'Condemned to sleeplessness by the chatter permeating his guesthouse room, a forlorn traveller turns his ear to the riotous tale spun by the garrulous, meddlesome, inane and utterly unprincipled Márya Martýnovna next door. Her exuberant deformations of morality and la...

The ten stories collected in this volume demonstrate Tolstoy's artistic prowess displayed over five decades - experimenting with prose styles and drawing on his own experiences with humour, realism and compassion. Inspired by his experiences in the army, 'The Two Hussars' contrasts a dashing father and his mean-spirited son. Illustrating Tolstoy's belief that art must serve a moral purpose, 'What Men Live By' portrays an angel sent to earth to learn three existential rules of life, and 'Tw...

Translated for the first time in English, Lev Levanda's brilliant coming-of-age story of Russian Jewish students on the cusp of modernity in their struggle against religious chauvinism and an oppressive government.Despite being Russia's best Jewish writer of the nineteenth century, Lev Levanda (1835–1888) is barely known in the English-speaking world, with some of his most famous works, like the 1873 novel Seething Times, having yet to be published in their entirety. Anoth...