| The Power of Darkness: A Drama in Five Acts Contributor(s): Tolstoy, Leo (Author), Maude, Louise (Translator), Maude, Aylmer (Translator) |
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ISBN: 0486828360 ISBN-13: 9780486828367 Publisher: Dover Publications OUR PRICE: $4.50 Product Type: Paperback Published: January 2019 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Drama | European - General - Drama | Russian & Former Soviet Union |
| Dewey: 891.723 |
| LCCN: 2018027650 |
| Series: Dover Thrift Editions |
| Physical Information: 0.3" H x 4.9" W x 7.8" (0.15 lbs) 80 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Russia |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Best known today as the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Count Leo Tolstoy also is acknowledged as a skilled playwright. His five-act drama The Power of Darkness offers a cold and unsparing look at Russian peasant life that illustrates the costs of pursuing personal desires rather than the dictates of morality. The grimly realistic tragedy is based on a real incident, centering on a peasant's confession to a party of wedding guests of his participation in a series of horrific crimes that range from adultery and murder to infanticide. Tolstoy's moving portrait of a class enslaved by poverty and ignorance was written in 1886, but its performance was suppressed by Russian authorities until 1902. A 1904 version, performed in New York in Yiddish, marked the first successful production of a play by Tolstoy in the United States. |