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"The Death of Ivan Ilyich is one of the masterpieces of Tolstoy s late fiction and the first major fictional work to be published by the author after his crisis and conversion to Christianity. The story of the life and death at the age of forty-five, of a high court prosecutor in 19th-century Russia, it is an intense and moving examination of loss and the possibilities of redemption, in which Tolstoy explores the dichotomy between the artificial and the authentic life.The nine other stories in this new collection include Hadji Murat which has been described by Harold Bloom as the best story in the world and The Devil , a tale of sexual obsession based on Tolstoy s own relationship with a married peasant woman on his estate in the years before his marriage. Magnificently translated by the acclaimed translating team behind War and Peace, this new volume captures the richness and immediacy of Tolstoy s language and reveals the author as a passionate moral guide, an unflinching seeker of truth, and a creator of enduring and universal art."