num_pages: 304
description: Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth? This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.
language: English
title: Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness, The Kreutzer Sonata & Master and Man
titlecomplete: Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness, The Kreutzer Sonata & Master and Man
genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Literature, Classics, Russian Literature
ratings_count: 117
publisher: Signet/ N A L