The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Hailed as one of the best novellas ever published as well as an outstanding triumph of his later fiction, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is Leo Tolstoy’s masterfully crafted story on what it means to face the end.

Ivan Ilyich is dead. Diagnosed just weeks before with an unknown—but terminal—illness, the late Court of Justice spent his final days reflecting on his “most simple and most ordinary”—and therefore most terrible—life. He did as was expected: worked an important job, garnered moderate wealth, married a slightly demanding woman, and started a family of his own…but had he ever truly lived?

Inspired by his newfound faith and renewed sense of purpose, Leo Tolstoy’s first major post-conversion work of fiction sees a modern unsentimental man face the reality of his own mortality. Not just the act and process of dying, but the physicality of waking up in a body that is doomed to fail, the actuality of the burden he is becoming to his family, and the vulnerability in knowing that ultimately, he—and everyone else—will die alone.

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With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.