The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Confession

Two of Tolstoy's late works in one volume, in new translations by Peter Carson with an introduction by Mary Beard. The Death of Ivan Ilyich follows a respectable judge who learns he is dying and sees how hollow his well-ordered life has been. Confession is Tolstoy's own account of the spiritual crisis he went through after his great novels, when he found he could no longer answer why he should go on living.