The Death of Ivan Ilyich

leo tolstoy

A masterpiece in which Tolstoy’s writing prowess reaches its zenith. It focusses on a subject close to human life – death. The issue is introduced through the character of a high court judge who recognizes, after death stares him in the face, that his life has been pointless and devoid of meaning. Moving and insightful! This EasyRead Large Edition has been optimized for readers who prefer a standard 16pt large type.

Genres classicsfictionrussiarussian literatureliteraturephilosophyshort storiesnovels19th centurynovella

null pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1886

This edition

Format: null pages, Paperback
Published: December 20, 2007 by Read How You Want
ISBN: 9781425012601
ASIN: 1425012604
Language: English

Characters More characters

Ivan Ilyich Golovin

Ivan Ilyich is a highly regarded official of the Court of Justice, described by Tolstoy as, "neither as cold and formal as his elder brother nor as wild as the younger, but was a happy mean between them—an intelligent, polished, lively, and agreeable man"...
Praskovya Fëdorovna Golovina

Praskovya Fëdorovna Golovin is Ivans unsympathetic wife. She is characterized as self-absorbed and uninterested in her husbands struggles unless they directly affect her personally....
Peter Ivanovich

Peter Ivanovich is Ivans longtime friend and colleague. He studied law with Ivan and is the first to recognize Ivans impending death.more...
Gerasim

Gerasim is the Golovins young butler. He takes on the role of sole comforter and caretaker during Ivans illness.more...
Lisa Golovina

...

About the author

leo tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.

His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.