Resurrection - Leo Tolstoy

About the Book

This powerful novel, Tolstoy’s third major masterpiece, after War and Peace and Anna Karenina, begins with a courtroom drama (the finest in Russian literature) all the more stunning for being based on a real-life event. Dmitri Nekhlyudov, called to jury service, is astonished to see in the dock, charged with murder, a young woman whom he once seduced, propelling her into prostitution. She is found guilty on a technicality, and he determines to overturn the verdict. This pitches him into a hellish labyrinth of Russian courts, prisons and bureaucracy, in which the author loses no opportunity for satire and bitter criticism of a state system (not confined to that country) of cruelty and injustice.

This is Dickens for grown-ups, involving a hundred characters, Crime and Punishment brought forward half a century. With unforgettable set-pieces of sexual passion, conflict and social injustice, Resurrection proceeds from brothel to court-room, stinking cells to offices of state, luxury apartments to filthy life in Siberia. The ultimate crisis of moral responsibility embroils not only the famous author and his hero, but also you and me. Can we help resolve the eternal issues of law and imprisonment?

About the Author

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (1828 -1910) is one of the major figures in world literature, and 'War and Peace' is in contention to be considered the greatest novel ever written. But this is only one of his memorable works: 'Anna Karenina' certainly equals it in popularity, and his shorter works, such as 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' are considered excellent.

Tolstoy was born on 09 September 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate in the Tula region of Russia. The Tolstoys were a well-known family of old Russian nobility, and he was connected to the grandest of Russian aristocracy. He was the fourth of five children of Count Nikoláj Illjìsch Tolstoy, a veteran of the campagne against France of 1812, and Countess Mariya Tolstaya. Sadly, Tolstoy’s parents died when he was young, so he and his siblings were brought up by relatives.

In 1844, he began studying law and oriental languages at Kazan University, but left in the middle of his studies and returned to Yasnaya Polyana. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he joined the army and began writing. His first novel of his autobiographical trilogy Childhood was published in 1852 in the magazine Sovremennik. It was highly lauded and Tolstoy was encouraged to continue with Boyhood and Youth.

In 1857 Tolstoy started a school for peasant children and realised that the secret of changing the world lay in education. In 1862 he married Sonya Andreyevna Behrs and the couple had thirteen children together. Sonya Tolstoy proved helpful to her husband’s writing career, organising his rough notes, copying out drafts, and assisting with his correspondence and business affairs of the estate. Thus Tolstoy plunged into his writing. He started War and Peace in 1862 and its six volumes were published between 1863 and 1869. His next epic novel was Anna Karenina which was published in 1878.Amongst his other published works are The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1859) and The Cossacks (1863)

Tolstoy died of pneumonia at Astapovo railway station on 20 November 1910, after leaving home in the middle of winter at the age of 82. His death came only days after summoning the nerve to abandon his family and wealth and take up the path of a wandering ascetic, a path that he had agonized over pursuing for decades.