"Tolstoy produced many drafts of Anna Karenina. Crafting and recrafting each sentence with careful intent, he was anything but casual in his use of language. His project, translator Marian Schwartz observes, "was to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions." In her magnificent new translation, Schwartz embraces Tolstoy's unusual style - she is the first English language translator ever to do so. Previous translations...

Eugene Irtenev is left a large inheritance after the death of his father. However, the inheritance is saddled with debts and he must decide whether or not to accept it. Eugene accepts the inheritance. Living alone with his mother while working on the farm. He gets introduced to a local peasant named Stepanida whose husband lives away in the city. For several months Eugene and Stepanida have encounters. Eventually, his mother thinks it is time for...

This collection of eleven stories spans virtually the whole of Tolstoy's creative life. While each is unique in form, as a group they are representative of his style, and touch on the central themes that surface in War and Peace and Anna Karenina.