''As good as anything Tolstoy ever wrote... Self-assured, vital, unforgettable'' Guardian The title story of this collection is about a man battling a mysterious illness. His family visit his bedside, their faces masks of concern. His colleagues pay their respects but only think of the advantages created by his death. This intensely moving story of Ivan Ilyich''s lonely end is one of the masterpieces of Tolstoy''s late fiction.The ten other stories in this collection include ''The Kreutzer Sonata'', ''The Devil'', and ''Hadji Murat'' which has been described by Harold Bloom as ''the best story in the world''.