{"product_id":"the-life-of-tolstoy-oxford-paperbacks","title":"The Life of Tolstoy (Oxford Paperbacks)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis magnificent biography by Tolstoys close friend and translator  Aylmer Maude  is now available in paperback for the first time. First published in 1908-10  when it was largely contributed to by Tolstoy and revised by his wife  Countess Tolstoy  it was revised and reviewed by Tolstoys daughter for the centenary of the authors birth in 1928. This second version includes an account of Tolstoys last days and death and the culmination of his thoughts about life  art  and religion. It is considered by many to be the definitive life of the great Russian writer. Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910)  a nobleman and heir to large estates  was a man of tremendous energy and fine intellect. His novels  which include War and Peace and Anna Karenina  and his numerous plays and short stories pursue in fiction the ideals of truth and morality the author himself pursued in life. Though constantly discouraged and remorseful  Tolstoy never abandoned these ideals and eventually arrived at \"intellectual conclusions which involved non-resistance to evil  the abolition of governments and nationality  of churches and dogmas  but involved also belief in God and love of men.\" The influence of Tolstoys ideas and writings spread far beyond the borders of Russia  and he became  and remains  a literary and intellectual prophet to many in the West. Born in Yaya Poly  an ancestral estate 130 miles south of Moscow  Tolstoy was surrounded in his youth by wealth and privilege. Despite the fact that he and his brothers and sister were orphaned by the time Tolstoy was nine  there were tutors and a large extended family to care for them. Tolstoys military career  which forced him to confront mortality and the meaning of life  began in adolescence when he volunteered for duty in the Caucasus and continued through the 1850s and the bloody Crimean War. His search for meaning led him to spiritualism and the occult and to the writing of short stories  the first of which  \"Childhood \" was published when he was 24. Tolstoy married and fathered 13 children  but left the daily care of both his children and his estate to his wife  as he repudiated money and property. Aylmer Maude  who spent 23 years in Russia  examines these and many other facets of Tolstoys life with the intimacy of a close friend and the objectivity of a Westerner. His Life of Tolstoy  long considered a major biography  illuminates the development of Tolstoys life and ideas and the great literary works that reflect them.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44949804253237,"sku":"ByrdShop_0192820273","price":90.38,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780192820273.jpg?v=1770087126","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-life-of-tolstoy-oxford-paperbacks","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}