Baylen "A letter and K. Sonata"

K. Sonata is a work "exposing the conventional illusion of romantic love." T wanted to show how a marriage could be deprived of its "first condition" by "the substitution of romantic love, a fever born of carnal passion, for true Christian love, which is born of identity of sentiment, similarity of idea, and the friendship of the soul. "
Isabel Hapsgood was given permission to translate an abridged version of the sonata in April, 1890 - a year before it appeared in Russia. Despite the ban put on its publication there were endless copies of the novel circulated on lithograph. It was first published in Russia in 1891. Tolstaya reports that her father thought "the story is not at all fit to be read by young girls, although the chief idea of it is moral.