num_pages: 172
description: Alexei Tolstoy, the author of the well-known trilogy The Ordeal and the historic novel Peter I, also wrote small but highly artistic works on the life of Russian small-country gentry at the beginning of the twentieth century. The most popular among them is The Lame Prince, written in 1912. The author's attention was focused at the time on problems of morals, the questions of friendship and love. "Without love," the young Tolstoy wrote, "life is a meaningless existence, and pitiable is the man, no matter what gifts of nature he is surrounded with, whose heart has never felt the spark of love. "It is worth while living to love." By the lectern stands a beautiful girl, and beside her is a pale man weary of life, the lame Prince Krasnopolsky. Today his dream has come true: Katya Volkova, the most beautiful woman in the uyezd, whose love he has long wished to win, has become his wife. The wedding is over. But what prospects does it offer these two people who differ so greatly from each other? Will the young, pure girl find happiness in her union with an unhappy, perverted man? Will the selfless love of the woman triumph or will she be broken and pine away under the painful blows of fate? The story of the young couple provides the basis for The Lame Prince. It is the tale of the victory of a great feeling over base passions, the story of the great transforming power of woman's love.
language: English
title: The Lame Prince
titlecomplete: The Lame Prince
genres: Russian Literature, Fiction, Literature
ratings_count: 34
publisher: Fredonia Books