The Greatest Short Stories of Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy is regarded as one of the greatest writers in history and this collection features his highly acclaimed short stories. This collection includes 'God Sees the Truth, but Waits' and 'A Prisoner in the Caucasus' which Tolstoy himself considered as his best, 'How Much Land Does a Man Need?', 'Ivan the Fool', etc. These stories give a snapshot of Russia and its people in the late nineteenth century. The message in all his stories is presented with such humour that the reader hardly realises that it is strongly didactic.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was born in central Russia. After serving in the Crimean War, he retired to his estate and devoted himself to writing, farming, and raising his large family. His novels and outspoken social polemics brought him world fame.His two most famous works '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.