The Gospel in Brief

<p><strong><em>The Gospel in Brief</em> 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 <em>The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year</em></strong></p><p>The most celebrated novelist of all time the author of <em>Anna Karenina</em> and <em>War and Peace</em> 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 <em>The Gospel in Brief</em>--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 <em>The Gospel in Brief</em> 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. </p><p>A fresh translation destined to introduce a new generation to a fuller understanding of Tolstoy's mind. --<em>Kirkus Reviews</em><br/></p><p>Dustin Condren captures in this fresh idiomatic translation the dazzlingly audacious achievement of <em>The Gospel in Brief </em> Tolstoy's daring synthesis the New Testament accounts of Jesus. --Edward E. Ericson Jr. editor of <em>The Solzhenitsyn Reader</em><br/><br/>Newly translated by Dustin Condren Tolstoy's <em>Gospel in Brief</em> 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<br/></p>