19 h 38 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 482 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 482 pagesAbout this book
What if the prisoner before you is the woman whose life you helped destroy?
Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov takes his place on a jury and recognizes the accused: Katusha Maslova, a woman he once wronged and abandoned. Her presence breaks through his comfortable life. In Leo Tolstoy’s Resurrection, a courtroom encounter forces a wealthy man to face the suffering he has refused to see.
Nekhlyudov sets out to help Maslova, but his guilt reaches beyond their shared past. Courts, prisons, country estates, and the offices of powerful officials expose a deeper injustice. As he questions the source of his wealth and the habits of his class, atonement demands more than regret.
What you’ll discover
- A past brought close Enter the courtroom where recognition turns an ordinary jury duty into a reckoning with personal guilt.
- Justice under scrutiny See how tired jurors and routine decisions can place a vulnerable person’s future in danger.
- The cost of comfort Follow Nekhlyudov onto his estates as he questions the wealth that supports his easy life.
- People beyond the verdict Meet prisoners whose lives ask you to look beyond official judgments and see their human dignity.
- Renewal without easy answers Explore the distance between feeling remorse and accepting responsibility for the harm you have done.
Who will love it
For readers who love big Russian novels with a moral argument, and anyone curious about justice, class and conscience.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A juror recognizes the woman in the dock
- The past: one night, and what followed
- A careless verdict sends an innocent woman away
- Nekhlyudov resolves to atone and visits the prison
- He faces his land and the peasants who work it
- Petitions, officials, and the machine of the state
- On the road to Siberia with the convoy
- What the novel says about guilt, law, and renewal
- How Tolstoy tells it: satire, close detail, and the Gospel
Who’s who
- Dmitri NekhlyudovA rich prince and juror who recognizes the accused as a girl he wronged, and sets out to atone, whatever it costs.
- Katusha MaslovaA woman raised as a ward in a country house, later a prostitute, now convicted by a flawed verdict and facing Siberia.
- FanarinA skilled lawyer whom Nekhlyudov hires to carry Maslova's appeal through the courts.
- Missy KorchaginaThe daughter of a respectable family whom Nekhlyudov was expected to marry before his life changed course.
- SeleninAn old friend of Nekhlyudov, now a government official, decent in manner but settled in the habits of the law.
- SimonsonA quiet, earnest political prisoner traveling in the convoy, who treats Maslova with respect.
- Maria PavlovnaA generous young woman who has left a comfortable home to share the fate of the political prisoners.
- MenshovA peasant held with his mother for a crime he did not commit, whose case draws Nekhlyudov's help.
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- Audiobook
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Resurrection
by Leo Tolstoy · 1899
A prince sits on a jury and recognizes the woman he once wronged, putting his comfortable life at stake.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 9
A juror recognizes the woman in the dock
The novel opens on a spring morning in a Russian provincial town. Prisoners are being led to court, and among them is a woman called Maslova. She is accused, along with two others, of taking part in the death of a merchant who died at a hotel. The court is a place of routine, and Tolstoy shows it as such. Officials yawn, lawyers shuffle papers, and the business of deciding a human life goes on like any other office work.
Prince Nekhlyudov arrives late and takes his seat among the jurors. He is a wealthy man of about thirty-five, used to comfort, clever talk and the good opinion of his class. That very morning he has been thinking of Missy Korchagina, the daughter of a well-placed family, whom he half expects to marry. His mind is on small things, on his tie, his dinner and his plans.
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What is Resurrection by Tolstoy about?
It tells of Prince Nekhlyudov, who sits on a jury and recognizes the accused woman as Katusha Maslova, a girl he wronged years before. He tries to make amends, and in doing so he confronts the injustice of Russian law and society.
Why is the novel called Resurrection?
The title means spiritual rebirth, not rising from the dead. Tolstoy shows a conscience buried under habit and vanity coming back to life in Nekhlyudov and in Maslova, as each faces what has been done to them and by them.
When was Resurrection written and is it a true story?
Tolstoy wrote it through the 1890s and published it in 1899. It is fiction, though it grew from a real case told to him by a friend, a judge, about a man who wished to marry a woman he had wronged.
The author
Leo Tolstoy
1828–1910 · Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian author born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, where he lived for much of his life. He wrote novels, stories, and essays. War and Peace appeared in 1865–1869 and Anna Karenina in 1875–1877. He died in 1910 at Astapovo, Russia.
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