`To love him was not enough for me after the happiness I had felt
in falling in love. I wanted movement and not a calm course of
existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to
sacrifice myself for my love.' Leo Tolstoy, known to the world for
his famous novels, also created throughout his sixty-year career as
a writer a significant body of works of shorter ficiton. These
fictions, like his novels, tend toward a uniqueness in form, even
as they explore a set of themes common in the longer works. The
four novellas selected here stand closest to the novels, and
represent Tolstoy at his creative best, exploring in a specific and
focused way his characteristic themes: life understood as a journey
of the discovery of identity and vocation, the meaning of one's
life in the face of death, and the redemptive role of suffering and
compassion. Family Happiness (1859) traces the psychology of failed
married love yet is written against the tradition of the novel of
romance, marriage and adultery. The Kreutzer Sonata (1889) recounts
a husband's addictions, jealousy, sinister guilt and subsequent
isolation, while The Cossacks (1863) focuses on the experiences of
a young Russian on in the Caucusus whose quest for romantic love
becomes one for the love of 'the whole of God's world'. Finally,
the superbly crafted Hadji Murad (1905) juxtaposes the military and
civilian worlds, and relates a tale of the human violation of the
natural through a series of parallel episodes. Written over a
period of almost fifty years, these works display Tolstoy's
changing views on art and sexuality, women and marriage,
nationalism and ethnicity, war and empire. All four novellas
develop, each in its own unique way, the central Tolystoyan theme
of love. This edition, which updates a classic translation, has
explanatory notes and a substantial introduction based on the most
recent scholarship in the field. 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.
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