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  • Published: 1 December 1987
  • ISBN: 9780140444735
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $26.00

A Confession and Other Religious Writings




The searingly honest, spiritual autobiography of Rossia's greatest novelist, written during a period of emotional crisis

Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession (1879) is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty. By the time he was fifty, Tolstoy had already written the novels that would assure him of literary immortality; he had a wife, a large estate and numerous children; he was 'a happy man' and in good health - yet life had lost its meaning. In this poignant confessional fragment, he records a period of his life when he began to turn away from fiction and aesthetics, and to search instead for 'a practical religion not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on earth'.

  • Published: 1 December 1987
  • ISBN: 9780140444735
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $26.00

Other books in the series

The New Penguin Book Of American Short Stories, From Washington Irving To Lydia Davis
A Dog's Heart
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
Selected Poetry
On Sparta
Venus in Furs
Man and Superman
Botchan
Military Dispatches

About the author

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia on 9 September 1828. In 1852 he published his first work, the autobiographical Childhood. He served in the army during the Crimean War and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6) are based on his experiences. His two most popular masterpieces are War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1875-8). He died in 1910.

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