Showing results by author "Leo Tolstoy" in All Categories

Leo Tolstoy's classic story of doomed love is one of the most admired novels in world literature. Generations of readers have been enthralled by his magnificent heroine, the unhappily married Anna Karenina, and her tragic affair with dashing Count Vronsky.

Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky.

War and Peace is at once an epic war chronicle and an exploration of everything that make us all human: love and hate, ambition and despair, life and death. Allow yourself to get lost in the lives of three Russian aristocratic families, whose triumphs and challenges are every bit as resonant to today’s listener as they were to original readers. Thandiwe Newton inhabits each character with such flair that it is easy to forget that you are listening to one voice.

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this tale of love and self-destruction is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.

At a glittering society party in St Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon's army marches on Russia and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants, to soldiers and Napoleon himself.

The Ultimate Classics Collection: Volume One is a continent-hopping, century-spanning collection of 15 essential classic novels by British, American, and Russian authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Stephen Fry, Jason Isaacs, Adjoa Andoh, David Rintoul, and many more.

Christmas is the perfect time to curl up with a good story, and this cracking collection brings you 30 wonderfully diverse tales inspired by this most special of seasons. From Santa Claus, gift-giving and family gatherings, to an unexpected encounter in a snowstorm and an alternative take on the Nativity, they're sure to get you in the festive mood.

Anna Karenina is beautiful, married to a successful man, and has a son whom she adores. But a chance meeting at a train station in Moscow sets her passionate heart alight, and she is defenceless in the face of Count Vronsky's adoration. Having defied the rules of nineteenth-century Russian society, Anna is forced to pay a heavy price.

One of the world’s greatest novelists, Leo Tolstoy was also the author of a number of superb short stories, one of his best known being “The Kreutzer Sonata.” This macabre story involves the murder of a wife by her husband. It is a penetrating study of jealousy as well as a piercing complaint about the way in which society educates men and women in matters of sex - a serious condemnation of the mores and attitudes of the wealthy, educated class.

Leo Tolstoy was born to an aristocratic Russian family, became a world-famous influential novelist, and then chose to lead the simple life of a peasant. Dating from this last part of his life, Tolstoy’s influential book What I Believe takes readers along on the path to a life modeled literally on Jesus Christ’s "Sermon on the Mount" and the teachings of the Gospels. In revealing and frank essays he reimagines a faith without dogma, centered solely on Jesus’ doctrine of love, humility, and self-denial.

When Prince Dmitri Nekhludov is called for jury duty on a murder case, he little knows how the experience will change his life. Faced with the accused, a prostitute, he recognizes Katusha, the young girl he seduced and abandoned many years before, and realizes his responsibility for the life of degradation she has been forced to lead. His determination to make amends leads him into the darkest reaches of the Tsarist prison system, and to the beginning of his spiritual regeneration.

Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy's genius is clearly seen in the multitude of characters in this massive chronicle, all of them fully realized and equally memorable.

One of the greatest novelists of all time, Leo Tolstoy is famed worldwide for his masterpieces of realist fiction, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This comprehensive collection contains both those iconic works, as well as his final novel, Resurrection, his autobiographical essay 'A Confession', Stephen Wakelam's dramatic account of his tempestuous marriage, Mrs Tolstoy, and In Our Time: Tolstoy.

It tells of the love affair between Anna and Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Russia, faith is challenged, bonds are broken, love dies and is reborn.

The heroine of Tolstoy's epic of love and self-destruction, Anna Karenina has beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son, but feels that her life is empty until she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalises society and family alike, and brings jealousy and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.

This is the story of the unhappy family of Anna Karenina. The novel contains much concerning Tolstoy's spiritual crisis and his search for the meaning of life. But it is also chiefly about marriage, and the growth and death of love.

This is a diverting delight, a window on romance in literature. There are high lovers and low lovers, tragic lovers, comic lovers, and lovers who shouldn’t be doing what they are doing at all and certainly not then and there. There is even Fanny Hill trying not to discover what physical love is about when set upon by an old roué who has paid for the privilege. Though of special interest for lovers and their special lover’s day of St. Valentine, it is an amusing and sometimes surprising collection.

Tolstoy based Resurrection, the last of his novels, on a true story of a philanderer whose misuse of a beautiful young orphan girl leads to her ruin. Fate brings the two together many years later, and the meeting awakens the man's moral conscience. Anger, intimacy, forgiveness, and grace result.

In early nineteenth-century Russia, the threat of Napoleon’s invasion looms, and the lives of millions are about to be changed forever. This includes Pierre Bezúkhov, illegitimate son of an aristocrat; Andrew Bolkónski, ambitious military scion; and Natásha Rostóva, compassionate daughter of a nobleman. All of them are unprepared for what lies ahead. Alongside their fellow compatriots - a catalog of enduring literary characters - Pierre, Andrew, and Natásha will be irrevocably torn between fate and free will.