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A Confession and Other Religious Writings

By Leo Tolstoy
Penguin Classics
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
A Confession and Other Religious Writings by Leo Tolstoy explores the author's deep spiritual journey and crisis. It chronicles his quest for life's meaning and examines religious and philosophical beliefs that influenced his personal transformation. Tolstoy shares his thoughts on faith, morality, and the juxtaposition of religion and rationalism, offering profound insights into the human quest for divine understanding.
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

If you're drawn to exploring profound spiritual questions and the evolution of personal faith, you might find this work captivating. This collection offers insight into the author's introspective journey and grapples with existential themes, blending philosophical reflection with a candid exploration of belief and doubt.

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This is a reader covering Tolstoy's later beliefs after he had rejected orthodox religion. The book mainly draws on "Confession" (1879), "What is My Faith?" (1884) and other occasional pieces.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Describing Tolstoy's crisis of depression and estrangement from the world, A Confession (1879) is an autobiographical work of exceptional emotional honesty.

By the time he was fifty, Tolstoy had already written the novels that would assure him of literary immortality; he had a wife, a large estate and numerous children; he was a happy man and in good health—yet life had lost its meaning.

In this poignant confessional fragment, he records a period of his life when he began to turn away from fiction and aesthetics, and to search instead for a practical religion not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on earth.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780140444735

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 27 August 1987

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Contributors:

  • Translated by Jane Kentish
  • Introduction by Jane Kentish

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 14.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 181g

Pages: 240

Collections

Best Sellers at Book Hero Biography & Memoir Gifts $20-$50 In Stock Books Leo Tolstoy Non-Fiction Penguin Black Classics Penguin Books Penguin Classics Penguin Classics: Religion & Spirituality Religion & Spirituality

About the Author

Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born in 1828 and educated privately. He studied Oriental languages and Law at the University of Kazan, then led a life of pleasure until he joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus in 1851. He served during the Crimean War and after the defence of Sebastopol wrote The Sebastopol Sketches, which established his reputation. He continued to write while developing educational projects, writing War and Peace and Anna Karenina between 1865 and 1876. A Confession marked an outward change in his life and works- he became an extreme rationalist and moralist, and his theories led to his excommunication from the Russian Holy Synod in 1901. He died in 1910. Jane Kentish is a lecturer in Byzantine and early Russian History and Art at the University of Sussex.

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