Physical description

Hard cover book. Sebastopol
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Editor/Translator: Ivan Lepinski
Publisher: Collins Clear-Type Press
Date: Circa 1932
Further Information: Mauve Cloth hardcover & brown spine with lettering and patterning to spine in gilt. The spine has a Library label with an inscription.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine with typed text PAT 891.73 TOL
Paste down front end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Mechanics Institute and Free Library
Front loose end paper has a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service
Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service

Summary

"Sebastopol" is the English title given to Tolstoy's Sevastopol Sketches, which consist of three connected short stories: "Sevastopol in December," "Sevastopol in May," and "Sevastopol in August." These stories record Tolstoy's own experiences during the 1854–55 siege of Sevastopol in Crimea, published in 1855. Tolstoy served as an artillery officer at the siege, and the sketches move from a second-person guided "tour" of the besieged city through an increasingly unsentimental, often brutal picture of battle. The second sketch examines the senselessness and vanity of war, and Tolstoy famously closes by declaring truth itself the only hero of the account.