TOLSTOY, LEO | The Novels and other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899-1904

TOLSTOY, LEO

The Novels and other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoï. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899-1904

22 volumes, 8vo (8 x 5 3/8 in.). Frontispiece plates. Full blue crushed morocco, covers elaborately tooled in gilt, spines with raised band in six compartments, second and third gilt-lettered, others with a repeat decoration in gilt, top edge gilt, others uncut, red morocco doublures with wide gilt dentelles, red silk endpapers.

Copy 1 of 24 of the deluxe Autograph Edition, including a full-page autograph manuscript signed by Tolstoy 



The autograph manuscript within the present set comprises a lengthy quotation from Tolstoy's short-story "Walk in the Light While There Is Light" (1893), which aptly summarizes his Christian anarchist and pacifist beliefs: "You are seeking your best advantage, and so are we; the only difference is that we see our advantage in different things. You believe that your well- being consists in riches and honors; we believe in something else. Our belief shows us that our advantage is not in violence, but in submissiveness; not in wrath, but in giving everything away. And we, like plants in the light, cannot help striving in the direction where we see our advantage."