The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a short work of fiction, usually called a novella, set among the Russian professional classes in the later nineteenth century. Ivan Ilyich is a respectable judge who has devoted himself to career, comfort and appearances. When a sudden illness interrupts his orderly life, he is forced to look at how he has lived and at the distance between himself and the people around him. The story is brief, plain and searching, and it is often praised as one of the most powerful portraits of mortality in literature.