Despite having written War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy, at the age of 51, looked back on his life and considered it a meaningless, regrettable failure. A Confession provides insight into the great Russian writer's movement from the pursuit of aesthetic ideals toward matters of religious and philosophical consequence.Authentic and genuinely moving, this memoir of midlife spiritual crisis was first distributed in 1872 and marked a turning point in the author's career as a...
As a result of his controversial works criticizing the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church, Tolstoy was excommunicated in 1901, dismissing the event lightly as he continued his search for a practical religion. «A Confession and Other Religious Works» is the product of years of introspection, resulting in a drastic reorientation of Tolstoy's beliefs and values. He felt undeserving of the wealth and fame he had accumulated, while millions around him were illiterate and...
