First published in 1886, Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich examines ideas of mortality, middle-class artificiality, suffering, and redemption through the life and death of the title character. Ivan is a successful civil servant with an outwardly admirable life until he injures himself while hanging curtains. Over time, he develops a mysterious fatal disease which is made worse by his own spiritual sickness. After a lifetime spent fleeing any hint of suffering and ignoring the reality of death, Ivan must wrestle with the reality of the human condition and with the ultimate destructiveness of his chosen, perfectly respectable, lifestyle.