The Leo Tolstoy BBC Radio Drama Colle..., Leo Tolstoy
The Leo Tolstoy BBC Radio Drama Colle..., Leo Tolstoy
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The Leo Tolstoy BBC Radio Drama Collection
Full-cast dramatisations of War and Peace, Anna Karenina & more

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Narrator: Simon Russell Beale, Amanda Redman, Emily Mortimer, Teresa Gallagher, Toby Stephens, Richard Dillane, Ian McDiarmid, Haydn Gwynne, Full Cast, Katherine Igoe

Unabridged: 18 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/06/2022


Synopsis

BBC Radio adaptations of Tolstoy's three major novels, plus a reading of his profound philosophical memoir, an original drama based on his life and a bonus documentary

One of the greatest novelists of all time, Leo Tolstoy is famed worldwide for his masterpieces of realist fiction, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This comprehensive collection contains both those iconic works, as well as his final novel Resurrection; his autobiographical essay A Confession; Stephen Wakelam's dramatic account of his tempestuous marriage, Mrs Tolstoy; and In Our Time: Tolstoy.

War and Peace - 1805, and Napoleon Bonaparte is threatening the peace of Europe. In St Petersburg and Moscow, the lives of three aristocratic families are about to be changed forever... This epic dramatisation stars Simon Russell Beale, Gerard Murphy, Amanda Redman and Emily Mortimer.

Anna Karenina - In 19th Century Russia, bored high society wife Anna embarks on an affair with the handsome Count Vronsky - but her passion sets her on a path to self-destruction. Starring Teresa Gallagher and Toby Stephens.

Resurrection - Serving on the jury in a murder trial, Prince Dimitri recognises the young prostitute in the dock as Katerina Maslova, the girl he seduced years before. Knowing he is partly responsible for her plight, he attempts to atone for his mistakes and find redemption. Katherine Igoe and Richard Dillane star in this powerful adaptation of Tolstoy's final novel.

A Confession - Read by Joss Ackland, this compelling religious testament describes Tolstoy's search for God, faith and the meaning of life.

Mrs Tolstoy - In his fifties, Leo Tolstoy has a spiritual crisis. Converting to Christianity, he gives up writing, stops sleeping with his wife, won't see his children and wants to give away all his possessions. But Sofya is ready to fight for her husband and family... Starring Ian McDiarmid and Haydn Gwynne.

In Our Time: Tolstoy - Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tolstoy's life and writings, exploring his urgent desire to represent real life in his work, how he strove to convey truth to the reader - and why he ultimately gave up on literature to concentrate on religious and political philosophy.

Please note that the chapter headings have been updated as of 10th February 2022.

© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
(p) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

First published 1869 (War and Peace), 1877 (Anna Karenina), 1879 (A Confession), 1899 (Resurrection)

About Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana in central Russia and educated privately. He studied Oriental languages and law at the University of Kazan, then led a life of dissipation until 1851, when he went to the Caucasus and joined an artillery regiment. He took part in the Crimean War, and on the basis of this experience wrote The Sevastopol Stories, which confirmed his tenuous reputation as a writer.

After a period in St. Petersburg and abroad, where he studied educational methods for use in his school for peasant children at Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy married Sofya Behrs in 1862. The next fifteen years was a period of great happiness: the couple had thirteen children, and Tolstoy managed his estates, continued his educational projects, and wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

A Confession marked a spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life; he became an extreme moralist, and in a series of pamphlets written after 1880, he expressed his rejection of state and church, indictment of the weaknesses of the flesh, and denunciation of private property. He published his last novel, Resurrection, in 1900.

Tolstoy's teaching earned him many followers at home and abroad, but also much opposition, and in 1901 he was excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox Church. He died in 1910.


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