Books by Leo Tolstoy

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828–1910), known in the English-speaking world as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian literary colossus, moral philosopher, and Christian anarchist universally revered as one of the greatest novelists in world history. Born into Russian nobility at his family estate Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy served as an artillery officer in the Crimean War, an experience that fueled his visceral anti-war convictions and realistic military sketches. In his colossal masterpieces War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), Tolstoy achieved an unprecedented fidelity to human psychological experience, weaving sweeping historical narratives with intimate family portraits and searching philosophical investigations into historical determinism, love, betrayal, and mortality. In later life, Tolstoy experienced a profound spiritual crisis, renouncing his aristocratic privileges and copyright to embrace radical nonviolence, vegetarianism, and ascetic Christian anarchism. His philosophical writings on passive resistance directly inspired global civil rights leaders including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.