Resurrection is Leo Tolstoy's final novel, a moral and social drama. A nobleman, Nekhlyudov, meets a woman he once wronged when she is tried, and his attempt to make amends becomes a journey of conscience through injustice and privilege. It is worth listening to for its deep compassion and its questions about justice, guilt and spiritual awakening.
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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
RESURRECTION
By Leo Tolstoy
Translated by Mrs. Louise Maude
[Transcriber’s Note: The following paragraph is on a page of its own, in cursive writing, apparently in Tolstoy’s own hand.]
This English version
of “Resurrection” is published by Dodd, Mead and
Company by my authority.
Leo Tolstoy
CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
Opinions about Tolstoy and his work differ, but on one point there surely might be unanimity. A writer of worldwide reputation should be at least allowed to know how to spell his own name. Why should any one insist on spelling it “Tolstoi” (with one, two or three dots over the “i”), when he himself writes it “Tolstoy”? The only reason I have ever heard suggested is, that in England and America
such outlandish views are attributed to him, that an outlandish spelling is desirable to match those views. This novel, written in the rough by Tolstoy some years ago and founded upon an actual occurrence, was completely rewritten by him during the last year and a half, and all the proceeds have been devoted by him to aiding the Doukhobors, a sect who were persecuted in the Caucasus (especially from 1895 to 1898) for refusing to learn war. About seven thousand three hundred of them are settled in Canada, and about a hundred of the leaders are exiled to the remote parts of Siberia. Anything I may receive for my work in translating the book will go to the same cause. “Prevention is better than cure,” and I would rather help people to abstain from killing and wounding each other than devote the money to patch up their wounds after the battle. LOUISE MAUDE RESURRECTION BOOK I.
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