About this book
Plays Complete Edition, Including the Posthumous Plays by Leo Tolstoy offers a powerful, late-career portrait of the writer’s moral drama and social critique, translated with care by Louise and Aylmer Maude. This collection brings together Tolstoy’s major stage works—The Power of Darkness, The First Distiller, Fruits of Culture, and the posthumous pieces The Live Corpse, The Cause of It All, and The Light Shines in Darkness—rendered from the Russian into clear, compelling English for contemporary listeners. Rooted in the social and spiritual turmoil of late 19th-century Russia, these plays probe conscience, faith, family, and the corrosive effects of vice, balancing intense psychological realism with moral urgency. The Power of Darkness, Tolstoy’s first major play, and The Live Corpse stand out for their theatrical energy, while shorter pieces offer satirical and didactic commentary on temperance and culture. Presented as dramatic literature and language-rich dialogue, this edition illuminates Tolstoy’s transition from novelist to moral playwright and the censorship and stage controversies his work provoked. Ideal for lovers of classic Russian drama, theater practitioners, students of literature, or anyone drawn to ethically charged, character-driven plays—listen for a masterful fusion of moral philosophy and the theatrical craft.
