Tammsaare's early works are characterized by rural "poetic" realism.
Some of his stories also reflect the atmosphere of the revolutionary year of 1905.
During what is sometimes classified as his second period, from 1908 to 1919, he wrote several short urban novels and collections of miniatures.
In "Poiss ja liblikas" (1915, The Boy and the Butterfly), Tammsaare shows the influence of Oscar Wilde.
Internationally best known is his last novel, Devil with a False Passport.

Truth and Justice comprises five volumes, which have no individual titles (some were added in translation).

Since vol.
3 contains a description about the Russian Revolution of 1905, which is not informed by ideology but by an existential attention to individual suffering, it was often combined with vol.
2 by Soviet censorship.

Even today, the third volume is sometimes called "artistically inferior", although the description of the revolution is on par with similar scenes in Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago.
In Estonia, the second volume, with its Tartu educational scenes, is today probably the most enjoyed.
International critics would probably opt for vol.
1 as the strongest overall; it is a classical peasant novel reminiscent of Hamsun which is also generally held to be the most telling one about "the Estonian character", embodied especially in two antagonistic farmer figures Andres and Pearu.
Tammsaare himself said later that the different volumes deal with the relation of Man (i.e., the human person) to (1) the land, (2) God, (3) State and society, (4) him- or herself and (5) resignation.

Truth and Justice was not translated into English until 2014, when Haute Culture Books published the first volume of the saga under the name "Andres and Pearu".
There are two complete translations into German and one each into French, Latvian, and Czech.
Volume 1 has also been translated into Finnish, Polish, and Hungarian (with the title, Orcád verítékével).
Tammsaare's early works are characterized by rural "poetic" realism. Some of his stories also reflect the atmosphere of the revolutionary year of 1905. During what is sometimes classified as his second period, from 1908 to 1919, he wrote several short urban novels and collections of miniatures. In "Poiss ja liblikas" (1915, The Boy and the Butterfly), Tammsaare shows the influence of Oscar Wilde. Internationally best known is his last novel, Devil with a False Passport.
Truth and Justice comprises five volumes, which have no individual titles (some were added in translation).
Since vol. 3 contains a description about the Russian Revolution of 1905, which is not informed by ideology but by an existential attention to individual suffering, it was often combined with vol. 2 by Soviet censorship.
Even today, the third volume is sometimes called "artistically inferior", although the description of the revolution is on par with similar scenes in Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago. In Estonia, the second volume, with its Tartu educational scenes, is today probably the most enjoyed. International critics would probably opt for vol. 1 as the strongest overall; it is a classical peasant novel reminiscent of Hamsun which is also generally held to be the most telling one about "the Estonian character", embodied especially in two antagonistic farmer figures Andres and Pearu. Tammsaare himself said later that the different volumes deal with the relation of Man (i.e., the human person) to (1) the land, (2) God, (3) State and society, (4) him- or herself and (5) resignation.
Truth and Justice was not translated into English until 2014, when Haute Culture Books published the first volume of the saga under the name "Andres and Pearu". There are two complete translations into German and one each into French, Latvian, and Czech. Volume 1 has also been translated into Finnish, Polish, and Hungarian (with the title, Orcád verítékével).
A. H. Tammsaare