Resurrection

A beautiful hardcover edition of Tolstoy's most controversial novel: the dramatic tale of a remorseful nobleman who seeks redemption after a woman he once wronged is convicted of murder--only to discover a whole world of injustice previously unknown to him.

Called to serve on the jury of a murder trial, Prince Dmitry Nekhlyudov is devastated to recognize the defendant, Katerina, as a young woman he had seduced and abandoned years before. Pregnant with his child, she was cast out of her home and had turned to prostitution to survive, only to be charged with poisoning a client who beat her. Struck by the tragic consequences of his selfish actions, Dmitry decides to give up his life of wealth and privilege to devote himself to rescuing Katerina, even if it means following her into exile in Siberia. With its colorful cast of characters that range from peasants to aristocrats, and from bureaucrats to convicts, Tolstoy's novel, first published in 1899, creates a vivid panorama of Russian life.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Everyman’s Library Classics include an introduction, a bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times."If your library has a dedicated space for Tolstoy, there should be room for Resurrection, which contains some of the most powerful scenes he ever wrote. This is a novel of extraordinary moral insistence, unafraid of the places that conscience—or as Tolstoy would say, truth—might take it." —The Wall Street Journal


“[Resurrection is] one of Tolstoy’s most powerful satirical works. [It] is also unprecedented in Tolstoy’s work by the extent of its social inclusiveness and double focus on the ruling classes and marginal peoples . . . Nekhlyudov’s spiritual growth and quest to right the wrong he did to Katerina Maslova [exposes] as well the wrongs the state has perpetrated against whole swathes of the population . . . Its large cast of characters, from its metropolitan hero at the apex of the social scale to the prison population made up of political prisoners as well as criminals, captured a nation on the brink of unrest.” —from the Introduction by Andrew KahnCOUNT LEO TOLSTOY (1828–1910) was born in central Russia. After serving in the Crimean War, he retired to his estate and devoted himself to writing, farming, and raising his large family. His novels and outspoken social polemics brought him world fame.

ANDREW KAHN is a professor of Russian literature at Oxford University and the author of Pushkin’s Lyric Intelligence and Mandelstam’s Worlds, and co-author of A History of Russian Literature.