The Death of Ivan Ilyich

One of the peaks of world psychological prose. Tracing the thoughts and feelings of a fatally ill official, Tolstoy shows how a person runs from thoughts of death—and how death leads him to understand what his life had been.

“Every story by Tolstoy is the brightest, the most perfect, and the most complex work.”

V. V. Nabokov

“No other people anywhere in the world have such a brilliant creation. Everything here is little, small, weak, and pale compared to these seventy pages.”

V. V. Stasov

“I read ‘The Death of Ivan Ilyich.’ More than ever, I’m convinced that the greatest among all writers-artists ever, and everywhere, is L. N. Tolstoy. His one alone is enough for a Russian person not to bow their head shamefully when Europe counts up all the greatness it has given to humankind…”

P. I. Tchaikovsky