- Childhood (novel)
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Childhood
Tolstoy and his grandchildren, c. 1909Author(s) Leo Tolstoy Original title Детство (Detstvo) Translator Dora O'Brien (2010) Country Russia Language Russian Publisher Sovremennik Publication date 1852 Pages 358 p. (Paperback) ISBN 9781847491428 Followed by Boyhood Childhood (Russian: Детство, Detstvo) is the first published novel by Leo Tolstoy, released under the initials L. N. in the November 1852 issue of the popular Russian literary journal The Contemporary.[1]
It is the first in a series of three novels and is followed by Boyhood and Youth. Published when Tolstoy was just twenty-three years old, the book was an immediate success, earning notice from other Russian novelists including Ivan Turgenev, who heralded the young Tolstoy as a major up-and-coming figure in Russian literature.
Childhood is an exploration of the inner life of a young boy, Nikolenka, and one of the books in Russian writing to explore an expressionistic style, mixing fact, fiction and emotions to render the moods and reactions of the narrator.
Excerpt
"Will the freshness, lightheartedness, the need for love, and strength of faith which you have in childhood ever return? What better time than when the two best virtues -- innocent joy and the boundless desire for love -- were the only motives in life?"[2]
References
- ^ O'Brien, Dora. Trans. Dora O'Brien (2010). "Translator's Note" in Childhood, Boyhood, Youth. London: Penguin Books. pp. 358. ISBN 978-1847491428..
- ^ Original Translation of Вернутся ли когда-нибудь та свежесть, беззаботность, потребность любви и сила веры, которыми обладаешь в детстве? Какое время может быть лучше того, когда две лучшие добродетели — невинная веселость и беспредельная потребность любви — были единственными побуждениями в жизни? from Chapter XV of Детство
External links
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- Childhood at Project Gutenberg (transl. by C.J. Hogarth)
- Full text of Childhood in the original Russian
- Audiobook of Childhood in the original Russian
Works by Leo Tolstoy Biography · Bibliography · Texts Novels and
novellasChildhood (1852) · Boyhood (1854) · Youth (1856) · Family Happiness (1859) · The Cossacks (1863) · War and Peace (1869) · Anna Karenina (1877) · The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) · The Kreutzer Sonata (1889) · Resurrection (1899) · The Forged Coupon (1911) · Hadji Murat (1912)
Short stories "The Raid" (1852) · "The Wood-Felling" (1855) · "Sevastopol in December 1854" (1855) · "Sevastopol in May 1855" (1855) · "Sevastopol in August 1855" (1856) · "A Billiard-Marker's Notes" (1855) · "The Snowstorm" (1856) · "Two Hussars" (1856) · "A Landlord's Morning" (1856) · "Meeting a Moscow Acquaintance in the Detachment" (1856) · "Lucerne" (1857) · "Albert" (1858) · "Three Deaths" (1859) · "The Porcelain Doll" (1863) · "Polikúshka" (1863) · "God Sees the Truth, But Waits" (1872) · "The Prisoner in the Caucasus" (1872) · "The Bear-Hunt" (1872) · "What Men Live By" (1881) · "Memoirs of a Madman" (1884) · "Quench the Spark" (1885) · "Two Old Men" (1885) · "Where Love Is, God Is" (1885) · "Ivan the Fool" (1885) · "Evil Allures, But Good Endures" (1885) · "Wisdom of Children" (1885) · "Ilyás" (1885) · "The Three Hermits" (1886) · "Promoting a Devil" (1886) · "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" (1886) · "The Grain" (1886) · "The Godson" (1886) · "Repentance" (1886) · "Croesus and Fate" (1886) · "Kholstomer" (1886) · "The Empty Drum" (1891) · "Françoise" (1892) · "A Talk Among Leisured People" (1893) · "Walk in the Light While There is Light" (1893) · "The Coffee-House of Surrat" (1893) · "Master and Man" (1895) · "Too Dear!" (1897) · "Father Sergius" (1898) · "Esarhaddon, King of Assyria" (1903) · "Work, Death, and Sickness" (1903) · "Three Questions" (1903) · "After the Ball" (1903) · "Feodor Kuzmich" (1905) · "Alyosha the Pot" (1905) · "What For?" (1906) · "The Devil" (1911)
Plays The Power of Darkness (1886) · The First Distiller (1886) · The Fruits of Enlightenment (1891) · The Living Corpse (1900) · The Cause of it All (1910) · The Light Shines in Darkness
Non-fiction A Confession (1882) · What I Believe (1884) · What Is to Be Done? (1886) · On Life (1887) · The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) · The Gospel in Brief (1896) · What Is Art? (1897) · What Is Religion? (1902) · A Calendar of Wisdom (1910)
Related
articlesTolstoyan movement · Yasnaya Polyana
Categories:- 1852 novels
- Novels by Leo Tolstoy
- Autobiographical novels
- Works originally published in Sovremennik
- 19th century novel stubs
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