Publisher Description
Hailed as one of the world’s supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality.
How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth? A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.
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About Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was born about two hundred miles from Moscow. His mother died when he was two, his father when he was nine. His parents were of noble birth, and Tolstoy remained acutely aware of his aristocratic roots, even when he later embraced doctrines of equality and the brotherhood of man. After serving in the army in the Caucasus and Crimea, where he wrote his first stories, he traveled and studied educational theories. In 1862 he married Sophia Behrs and for the next fifteen years lived a tranquil, productive life, finishing War and Peace in 1869 and Anna Karenina in 1877. In 1879 he underwent a spiritual crisis; he sought to propagate his beliefs on faith, morality, and nonviolence, writing mostly parables, tracts, and morality plays. Tolstoy died of pneumonia in 1910 at the age of eighty-two.
About David Shaw-Parker
David Shaw-Parker is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and finalist for the prestigious Audie Award. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1975 and began his career at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977, appearing in over twenty-five productions between then and 1991. He went on to appear at The National Theatre in Oedipus Rex, The False Servant, and My Fair Lady and in London’s West End in Grand Hotel, The Country Wife, Acorn Antiques, Heavenly Ivy,and Cyrano de Bergerac,among others. His numerous television credits include Inspector Morse, Space Precinct, and The Commander, and his films include Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka, Uberto Pasolini’s Still Life, and The Muppet Christmas Carol.