Beginning with Tolstoy's first extant records of his written
oeuvre, this anthology assembles seventy-seven unabridged texts
that cover more than seven decades of his life, from 1835 to 1910.
It constitutes the most complete single-volume edition to date of
the rich variety of Tolstoy's philosophical output: apothegmatic
sayings, visions, intimate sketchbook and day notes, book reviews,
open letters, dialogues, pedagogic talks, public lectures, programs
and rules for personal behavior, fictions, and reminiscences. Most
of these newly translated and thoroughly annotated texts have never
been available in English. Among the four reprinted translations
personally checked and authorized by Tolstoy is the text titled
"Tolstoy on Venezuela," an archival restoration of an authentic
first publication in English of "Patriotism, or Peace?" (1896) that
had been deemed lost. In the inaugural piece, a seven-year-old
Tolstoy describes violent but natural animal life in contrast with
the lazy life of a peaceful barnyard in the countryside. The last
entry in the anthology written by an eighty-year-old Tolstoy for
his grandchildren provides a lesson on vegetarianism and
non-violence that a hungry wolf teaches a hungry boy during their
conversation when both are on their way to lunch. It was the
insolvable, the "scandalous," problems of philosophy that never
gave Tolstoy any rest: freedom of the will, religious tolerance,
gender inequality, the tonal shape of music, the value of healthy
life habits, the responsibilities of teaching, forms of social
protest, cognitive development, science in society, the relation
between body and mind, charity and labor, human dignity and public
service, sexual psychology, national war doctrines, suicide,
individual sacrifice, the purposes of making art. And always: What
are the sources of violence? Why should we engage in politics? Why
do we need governments? How can one practice non-violence? What is
the meaning of our irrepressible desire to seek and find meaning?
Why can't we live without loving? The typeset proofs of his final
insights were brought to Tolstoy for approval when he was already
on his deathbed. The reader will find all the texts in the exact
shape and order of completion as Tolstoy left them. No matter their
brevity or the occasion on which they were written, these works
exemplify Tolstoy as an artistically inventive and intellectually
absorbing thinker.
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