{"product_id":"9781612190808","title":"The Death of Ivan Ilych","description":"\u003cb\u003eThere is no explanation.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWritten eight years after the publication of \u003ci\u003eAnna Karenin\u003c\/i\u003ea—a  time during which, despite the global success of his novels, Leo Tolstoy  renounced fiction in favor of religious and philosophical tracts—\u003ci\u003eThe Death of Ivan Ilych \u003c\/i\u003erepresents perhaps the most keenly realized melding of Tolstoy’s spirituality with his artistic skills.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere  in a vibrant new translation, the tale of a judge who slowly comes to  understand that his illness is fatal was inspired by Tolstoy’s  observation at his local train station of hundreds of shackled prisoners  being sent off to Siberia, many for petty crimes. When he learned that  the sentencing judge had died, Tolstoy was roused to consider the  judge’s thoughts during his final days—a study on the acceptance of  mortality only deepened by the death, during its writing, of one of  Tolstoy’s own young children.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe final result is a magisterial  story, both chilling and beguiling in the fullness of its empathy, its  quotidian detail, and the beauty of its prose, and is, as many have  claimed it to be, one of the most moving novellas ever written.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003eThe Art of The Novella Series\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eToo short to be a novel, too long to be a short story, the novella is generally unrecognized by academics and publishers. Nonetheless, it is a form beloved and practiced by literature's greatest writers. In the Art Of The Novella series, Melville House celebrates this renegade art form and its practitioners with titles that are, in many instances, presented in book form for the first time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFrom the Trade Paperback edition.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Melville House Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47158426632432,"sku":"9781612190808","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781612190808_p0.jpg?v=1763844549","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781612190808","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}