Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 1

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

MAUDE, AYLMER: The Life of Tolstoy, 2 volumes, Oxford University Press, 1930 (revised version of the 1908–10 edition). Besides translating Tolstoy’s writings, Maude was Tolstoy’s friend and follower, and has insights not available to later biographers. This Life remains a classic.

SIMMONS, ERNEST J.: Leo Tolstoy, 2 volumes, Vintage Books, Boston, 1945–46 (Vintage paperback edition 1960), Routledge, London, 1973. A detailed and scholarly account by a distinguished American critic.

TROYAT, HENRI: Tolstoy (first published in French, 1965), Doubleday, New York, 1967, W. H. Allen, London, 1968, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1970. A detailed and popular biography (denounced by Nabokov as ‘a vile biographie romancée’). Highly readable if somewhat bland, and thin on the implications of Tolstoy’s ideas. Comprehensive in its references to the shorter fiction.

CRANKSHAW, EDWARD: Tolstoy – The Making of a Novelist, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1974. Less detailed and more idiosyncratic than the titles above, but a knowledgeable and well-illustrated study concentrating largely on Tolstoy’s personal and spiritual development before 1880.

WILSON, A. N.: Tolstoy, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1988, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1989. A stimulating, consciously unreverential treatment which is very readable, and good on the ideas as well as the literary writings. Refers to most of the more important short fiction.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

CHRISTIAN, R. F. (editor and translator): Tolstoy’s Letters, 2 volumes, Athlone Press, London and Scribner’s, New York, 1978.

CHRISTIAN, R. F. (editor and translator): Tolstoy’s Diaries, 2 volumes, Athlone Press, London and Scribner’s, New York, 1985.

These two comprehensive collections, clearly presented and well annotated, provide invaluable tools for the reader who wants to explore the connections between Tolstoy’s life and his fictions.

LITERARY CRITICISM

BAYLEY, JOHN: Tolstoy and the Novel, Chatto & Windus, London, 1966 (paperback edition 1968). The main focus is on War and Peace, but there are many references to the shorter writings.

CAIN, T. G. S.: Tolstoy (Novelists and their World series), Paul Elek, London, 1977. A survey of Tolstoy’s work which foregrounds his ethical and spiritual struggles. Includes discussions of Family Happiness, the post-conversion writings and Hadji Murad.

CHRISTIAN, R. F.: Tolstoy, a Critical Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 1969. A methodical and detailed survey of Tolstoy’s writings. Includes a discussion of Tolstoy’s earliest writings and a chapter on the later stories.

EIKHENBAUM, B. M.: The Young Tolstoy, tr. G. Kerne, Ardis, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1972. A translation of the great Soviet critic’s 1922 study which has much to say about narrative technique.

GIFFORD, HENRY (editor): Leo Tolstoy – A Critical Anthology, Penguin Books, 1971. An interesting anthology of reactions to Tolstoy’s writing, from contemporaries and later readers.

GREENWOOD, E. B.: Tolstoy – The Comprehensive Vision, Dent, London, 1975, paperback edition Methuen, London, 1980. A densely written survey covering the full range of Tolstoy’s fiction with an emphasis on psychology and ideas. Devotes more space than most critics to the shorter fiction of the early, middle and late periods.

JONES, MALCOLM (editor): New Essays on Tolstoy, Cambridge University Press, 1978. A symposium of contributions by ten writers which includes an essay on Hadji Murad by A. D. P. Briggs and a bibliography of Tolstoy studies in Great Britain.

KNOWLES, A. V. (editor): Tolstoy – The Critical Heritage, Routledge, London and Boston, 1978. A rich collection of criticism and comment on his works from Tolstoy’s own lifetime.

MATLAW, RALPH E.: Tolstoy – A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967. A representative collection of a dozen essays drawn from a wide range of writers. Half the pieces are thematic but Wasiolek’s thoughts on Ivan Ilych are included, as well as Shestov’s essay on Tolstoy’s late works which focuses on Diary of a Madman and discusses After the Ball and Master and Man.

ORWIN, DONNA TUSSING: Tolstoy’s Art and Thought, 1847–1880, Princeton University Press, 1993. A detailed examination of the main philosophical and intellectual influences on Tolstoy during his major creative period.

STEINER, GEORGE: Tolstoy or Dostoevsky – An Essay in Contrast, Faber, London, 1960. A remarkably full introduction to Tolstoy’s world view and art, considering that he shares the focus of the book with Dostoevsky. Many references to the shorter fiction.

WASIOLEK, EDWARD: Tolstoy’s Major Fiction, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1978. A concise overview of Tolstoy’s fiction which gives the shorter works unusual prominence: Wasiolek includes useful sections on Three Deaths, Polikushka and Family Happiness, as well as chapters devoted to The Death of Ivan Ilych and Master and Man.