Tolstoy's first sketch from the Crimea showed such remarkable literary talent that the Emperor Alexander II sent instructions to 'take care of the life of that young man'. The early tales in this selection are based on Tolstoy's army experiences, and depict the brutal realities of war and its impact on men's consciousness. In the 1870s, while writing Anna Karenina, Tolstoy underwent a spiritual crisis. He became obsessed with the idea of death and the apparent pointlessness of existence. Writing as art seemed irrelevant to him. The later tales in this volume are inspired by a new sense of moral certainty, yet their visionary power and subtle sardonic humour lift them far above the common run of didactic literature. When Tolstoy describes the onslaught of the blizzard in Master and Man or of moral illness in The Death of Ivan Ilych his ultimate purpose is to tell us what our lives should mean; but no writer ever conveyed better than Tolstoy simply what it means to be alive.