The Devil

"The Devil" is a novella by Leo Tolstoy. It was written in 1889, given an alternative ending in 1909, but published only posthumously in 1911. Like Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata, written around the same time, "The Devil" deals with the consequences of sexual emotion. This is the translation by Aylmer and Louise Maude, their work was thought to be of high quality in their lifetime, and this opinion still has wide support. Tolstoy believed that "Better translators, both for knowledge of the two languages and for penetration into the very meaning of the matter translated, could not be invented.