Twenty-Three Tales
by Leo Tolstoy
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists
The Maudes' collection of Tolstoy's short tales, most written for peasant readers in the 1880s. It gathers the stories for children from his primer, the folk-style parables such as What Men Live By, Where Love Is God Is, and How Much Land Does a Man Need, the Ivan the Fool tale, and later pieces including Alyosha the Pot. The tales are plain in language and turn on charity, humility, the vanity of wealth and the presence of God in ordinary life, and were written to be read aloud in cottages by people who had never opened a novel.
We recommendTwenty-Three Tales, translated by Louise and Aylmer MaudeOxford University Press, 1906The collection as the Maudes assembled it with Tolstoy's approval; long out of copyright and easy to find online or in reprint.
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- Written
- tales written 1872-1906, collected 1906
- Form
- Romance and tale
- Language
- Russian
- Length
- Medium · 300 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Approachable1 of 5 for a first-year reader
Louise and Aylmer Maude translation
Find this edition: Twenty-Three Tales, opens in a new tabBookshop.org: Twenty-Three Tales, opens in a new tab
Why it's on the list
Writing for peasant readers who had never opened a novel forced Tolstoy into a plainness of language that he came to think the only honest style, and the tales are the clearest demonstration of the art he praised in What Is Art at the expense of his own great books. Turning on charity, humility and the vanity of wealth, with God present in the shoemaker's shop and the peasant's hut, the parables carry his late religion in a form that needs no argument, the lesson enacted rather than stated. Answering the question of how much land a man needs with the six feet of his grave, in a story Joyce called the greatest in the world, gives the collection a tale whose shape has outlasted the creed it was written to serve. Gathering the children's stories from his primer beside the folk parables shows the same writer who built War and Peace deciding that a story a child could follow was the higher achievement, and reaching it.
Key themes
- God and faith
- God is present in the shoemaker's shop and the peasant's hut, and the parables carry Tolstoy's late religion in a form that needs no argument, the lesson enacted rather than stated.
- Money and class
- Answering the question of how much land a man needs with the six feet of his grave gives the collection a tale whose shape has outlasted the creed it was written to serve.
- Virtue and character
- Ivan the Fool, who works with his hands and cannot be tempted by the devils' gold or soldiers, is Tolstoy's picture of a goodness that looks like stupidity to the world.
- The good life
- Written for peasant readers, the tales say that the good life is available in a cottage to anyone who will love the neighbour in front of them.
- Evil and suffering
- The angel in What Men Live By learns that men live not by care for themselves but by love, and that suffering is where the lesson is taught.
Which translation to read
Our pick
Twenty-Three Tales, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Oxford University Press, 1906
The collection as the Maudes assembled it with Tolstoy's approval; long out of copyright and easy to find online or in reprint.
Amazon: the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation, opens in a new tabBookshop.org: the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation, opens in a new tab
Overview
About three hundred pages, the Maudes’ collection, assembled in 1906, of Tolstoy’s short tales, written between 1872 and 1906 and most of them for peasant readers in the 1880s. It gathers the stories for children from his primer, the folk-style parables such as What Men Live By, Where Love Is God Is, and How Much Land Does a Man Need, the Ivan the Fool tale, and later pieces including Alyosha the Pot.
The tales are plain in language and turn on charity, humility, the vanity of wealth and the presence of God in ordinary life.
What happens
Stories for children. The collection opens with the short pieces from Tolstoy’s primer for peasant schools, God Sees the Truth but Waits among them, in which a merchant wrongly convicted of murder forgives the real killer in Siberia after twenty-six years.
What Men Live By. The shoemaker Simon takes in a naked stranger who is an angel sent to earth to learn three truths, and who learns over years in the workshop that men live not by care for themselves but by love.
Where Love Is, God Is. The cobbler Martin, promised in a dream that Christ will visit him, spends the day helping a street-sweeper, a poor mother and an apple-thief, and learns at evening that each was the visit.
How Much Land Does a Man Need. The peasant Pahom, who thinks he would not fear the devil himself if he had enough land, is offered all the ground he can walk round in a day among the Bashkirs, walks too far, and dies at the finish, needing six feet.
Ivan the Fool. The old devil sends three young devils to ruin three brothers, a soldier, a merchant and the fool Ivan, and fails with Ivan, who cannot be tempted because he only values work done with his hands, and whose kingdom has no use for money or armies.
The later tales. Alyosha the Pot, a servant boy who does everything asked of him and dies without complaint, and the other late pieces close the collection in the same plain key.
How to read it
Read the plainness of the language as the point rather than a limitation, the style Tolstoy came to think the only honest one after renouncing the books that made him famous.
Pay close attention to how the lessons are enacted rather than stated, the angel learning in the workshop and the cobbler discovering his visitors, so that the tales carry a religion without preaching it.
Notice the shape of How Much Land Does a Man Need, the greed measured in footsteps and paid for in six feet, and ask why a story so simple has outlasted the creed it served.
Consider that the same writer who built War and Peace decided a story a child could follow was the higher achievement, and judge whether the tales bear him out.
Read these tales alongside the Gospel of Luke to see the parables Tolstoy was imitating, and to compare the shoemaker’s angel with the good Samaritan.
Questions it raises
- Are the tales the fulfilment of Tolstoy’s art, as he thought, or a narrowing of it, and can a reader who loves the novels honestly prefer them?
- How much of their power comes from their plainness, and would the same lessons work in the language of Anna Karenina?
- Is Ivan the Fool’s kingdom, without money or armies, a serious picture of how people might live, or a fable that only works because no one in it is clever?
- Why does How Much Land Does a Man Need strike readers who share none of Tolstoy’s religion, and what is its lesson without the faith?
- What does it mean that the tales were written to be read aloud in cottages, and do they change when read silently by people who have opened many novels?
- Is Alyosha the Pot, who does everything asked of him and dies without complaint, a saint or a warning, and does Tolstoy know?
Highlights
In What Men Live By a shoemaker takes in a naked stranger who proves to be an angel sent to learn three things: what dwells in men, what is not given to men, and what men live by, the last being love.
Paraphrase of the collection's best-known parable, which sets its lesson in a poor man's workshop.
In How Much Land Does a Man Need the peasant Pahom is offered all the land he can walk round in a day, walks too far in his greed, and dies at the finish, needing only six feet from head to heel.
Paraphrase of the tale James Joyce called the greatest story in the world.
The tales are plain in language and turn on charity, humility, the vanity of wealth and the presence of God in ordinary life, and were written to be read aloud to people who had never opened a novel.
Paraphrase of the collection's purpose and method, the art Tolstoy came to think the only honest kind.
