The Devil

He knows it is wrong. He loves his wife. He understands he is risking everything. None of it matters.

Leo Tolstoy's brutally honest novella is a story about sexual obsession and the terrifying gap between knowing what is right and being able to do it.

Evgeny Irtenev is an upstanding landowner—educated, married to a loving wife, committed to living morally. Before marriage, he had a physical relationship with a peasant woman, Stepanida, that he considered purely practical. Now married and faithful, he is certain that chapter is closed. Then he encounters her again. Desire reignites with consuming, irrational force. He knows it is wrong. He loves his wife. He understands he is risking everything—his reputation, his family, his sanity. None of it matters. The compulsion is stronger than reason, morality, or love.

This is Tolstoy at his most uncomfortably honest: a confession about how moral clarity provides zero protection against appetite, and how a good man with perfect self-awareness can still be destroyed by desire he cannot master. Written from Tolstoy's own struggle with lust in his later years, The Devil exists in two versions with radically different endings—both devastating.

• One of Tolstoy's most shocking and personal works, written in 1889 but suppressed during his lifetime

• Based on Tolstoy's own struggles with sexual temptation in his later years

• Published in two versions, with endings that offer different answers to the question: What happens when a man cannot control his own desire?

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears—or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that knowing what is right and doing what is right are two very different things.

About the Author

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and moral philosopher, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in world literature. Born into Russian aristocracy, he served as an artillery officer in the Crimean War. After completing Anna Karenina (1877), Tolstoy underwent a profound spiritual crisis, rejecting his earlier works and embracing a radical form of Christian anarchism. The Devil was written in 1889, during this later period, and reflects Tolstoy's intense struggles with sexual desire, which he came to see as a destructive, almost demonic force. The novella was considered too scandalous for publication in Russia and was not published until after Tolstoy's death. Two versions of the ending survive: one in which Evgeny commits suicide, and one in which he murders Stepanida and is sent to prison. Both endings suggest that for a man in the grip of obsession, there is no peaceful resolution. Tolstoy's other major works include War and Peace (1869), Anna Karenina (1877), The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), and Resurrection (1899). He died of pneumonia in 1910 at the Astapovo railway station, after fleeing his home in a desperate attempt to escape his fame and his family. He is buried at Yasnaya Polyana, his family estate.