The Gospel in Brief - (Harper Perennial Modern Thought) by Leo Tolstoy & Dustin Condren (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"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 The Gospel in Brief--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 The Gospel in Brief," 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

From the Back Cover

The most celebrated novelist of all time 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 The Gospel in Brief--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 The Gospel in Brief," 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."

Review Quotes

"Tolstoy's Gospel in Brief virtually kept me alive. If you are not acquainted with it, then you cannot imagine what an effect it can have upon a person." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The Gospel in Brief lives at the center of Leo Tolstoy's thinking about the meaning of life. In this absorbing volume -- beautifully translated by Dustin Condren -- the greatest of Russian authors revisits the Gospels with characteristic boldness, pushing through to the fiery core of Christianity. Although little known, this book remains hugely important." -- Jay Parini, author of The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year

"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

"A fascinating and thoroughly unorthodox rewriting of the Gospels and restatement of Christianity." -- Booklist

"This is the first English translation in more than a century; Condren worked from Tolstoy's original version and restored material deleted in previous translations. The result is not unlike Hermann Hesse's 'Siddhartha' -- the story of a life that illustrates a path." -- Los Angeles Times

"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

"A fresh translation destined to introduce a new generation to a fuller understanding of Tolstoy's mind." -- Kirkus Reviews