Written over a period of more than half a century, Tolstoy's enchanting
short stories and novellas reflect every aspect of his developing art and
outlook. Volume 1 of the Everyman Collected Shorter Fiction is dominated by
the characteristic experiences of his early life as soldier, land-owner,
husband and father, the life which shaped Anna Karenina and War and Peace.
It also includes several short fables which point to his later
preoccupation with the religious life. Volume 2 reveals how these spiritual
intimations flowered into a series of extraordinary late masterpieces which
equal anything in the earlier novels for intensity and power. Readers of
The Death of Ivan Ilych, The Kreutzer Sonata, Father Sergius, Master and
Man and Hadji Murad will recognize the brilliant younger novelist, now
transfigured by his passionate quest for salvation and forgiveness.