At first glance, it would seem that the hand that penned these beautifully succinct fables and fairy tales is far removed from the epic talent of War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
Yet Tolstoy's immense novels and these near-magical short tales of peasants and tsars, imps and devils, foolish savants and wise fools are connected -- by a common freshness of vision, an all-encompassing storytelling genius, and as omnipresent cocern with good and evil.
Splendidly translated by Ann Dunnigan, whose recent version of War and Peace has been acclaimed the finest of modern English renderings, these fables and fairy tales offer a supreme example of a great writer in whom artist and moralist have become one.
