‎'‎no one pitied him as he would have liked to be pitied‎'‎ As Ivan Ilyich lies dying he begins to re‎-evaluate his life‎,‎ searching for meaning that will make sense of his sufferings‎.‎ In ‎'‎The Death of Ivan Ilyich‎'‎ and the other works in this volume‎,‎ Tolstoy conjures characters who‎,‎ tested to the limit‎,‎ reveal glorious and unexpected reserves of courage or baseness of a near inhuman kind‎.‎ Two vivid parables and ‎'‎The Forged Coupon‎'‎‎,‎ a tale of criminality‎,‎ explore class relations after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the connection between an ethical life and worldly issues‎.‎ In ‎'‎Master and Workman‎'‎ Tolstoy creates one of his most gripping dramas about human relationships put to the test in an extreme situation‎.‎ ‎'‎The Death of Ivan Ilyich‎'‎ is an existential masterpiece‎,‎ a biting satire that recounts with extraordinary power the final illness and death of a bourgeois lawyer‎.‎ In his Introduction Andrew Kahn explores Tolstoy‎'‎s moral concerns and the stylistic features of these late stories‎,‎ sensitively translated by Nicolas Pasternak Slater‎.‎ ABOUT THE SERIES‎:‎ For over 100 years Oxford World‎'‎s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe‎.‎ Each affordable volume reflects Oxford‎'‎s commitment to scholarship‎,‎ providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features‎,‎ including expert introductions by leading authorities‎,‎ helpful notes to clarify the text‎,‎ up‎-to‎-date bibliographies for further study‎,‎ and much more‎.‎