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Bibliography: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy, Leo

Title
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Author
Tolstoy, Leo
Date
1886
Genre
fiction
Note Source
O Pioneers! Scholarly Edition, "Historical Essay" 291
Note Relating to Cather
In a letter to H.L. Mencken, "Cather writes that when she was fourteen she came upon four of Tolstoy's works—Anna Karenina, The Cossacks, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and The Kreutzer Sonata—and for the next three years read them over and over again. She says that this reading so strongly colored the way she saw her own world in America that she eventually turned to a long apprenticeship with Henry James and Mrs. Wharton to get over it. Yet in writing O Pioneers!, she wonders if she has really recovered from the Russian influence."