“
The Gospel in Brief
lives at the center of Leo Tolstoy’s thinking about the meaning of life. ... Beautifully translated by Dustin Condren. ... Although little known, this book remains hugely important.” —Jay Parini, author of
The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year
The most celebrated novelist of all time, the author of
Anna Karenina
and
War and Peace
, retells "the greatest story ever told," integrating the four Gospels into a single twelve-chapter narrative of the life of Jesus. Based on his study of early Christian texts, Leo Tolstoy's remarkable
—virtually unknown to English readers until this landmark new translation by Dustin Condren—makes accessible the powerful, mystical truth of Jesus's spiritual teaching, stripped of artificial church doctrine. "If you are not acquainted with
," wrote the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose life was profoundly influenced by it, "then you cannot imagine what an effect it can have upon a person."
“A fresh translation destined to introduce a new generation to a fuller understanding of Tolstoy’s mind.” —
Kirkus Reviews
“Dustin Condren captures, in this fresh idiomatic translation, the dazzlingly audacious achievement of
The Gospel in Brief,
Tolstoy’s daring synthesis the New Testament accounts of Jesus.” —Edward E. Ericson, Jr., editor of
The Solzhenitsyn Reader
“Newly translated by Dustin Condren, Tolstoy’s
Gospel in Brief
offers us a Jesus stripped of the overlay of Christian dogma and ancient metaphysics: his Jesus confronts readers with a real challenge and a call to change their lives.” —George Pattison, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford, and canon of Christ Church Cathedral