"In the Days of Serfdom" and Other Stories

By Leo Tolstoy and Marilyn Atlas

"In the Days of Serfdom" and Other Stories, originally published in 1911, presents in miniature themes developed in Tolstoy's longer works War and Peace and Anna Karenina. The compelling stories in this collection have largely been ignored by contemporary scholars and teachers because of their general unavailability. Available once again, the stories reveal new thematic and stylisitic dimensions to Tolstoy's oeuvre.

While not all of the stories deal with actual serfdom, they all address the legacy of serfdom, of choicelessness, in Tolstoy's Russia. These stories are also thoroughly modern, concerned as they are with the market economy, changing values, and women's roles in society. Artistically and historically significant, they constitute ethical and spiritual questionings that deal with lives out of control, with characters making sense of the experience of living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9780812291544

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian writer and social reformer, who is considered one of greatest novelists of all time. His was born to an aristocratic Russian family, and his first novel, Childhood (1852), was based on his youthful experiences. As a young man he fought in the Crimean War, an endurance that formed many of his radical moral and social beliefs and formed the basis of many of his works. Although his greatest novels are War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), his novellas, short stories, and philosophical works have held a profound influence throughout the world.