Tolstoy`s War & Peace & Anna Karenina are considered two of the greatest novels ever written. Here is a fresh perspective on his extraordinary life & times. In November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station attended by the world`s media. He was eighty-two years old & had lived a remarkable & long life during one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history. Born into a privileged aristocratic family, he seemed set to join the ranks of degenerate Russian noblemen, but fighting in the Crimean war alongside rank & file soldiers opened his eyes to Russia`s social problems & he threw himself into teaching the peasantry to read & write. After his marriage he wrote War & Peace & Anna Karenina, both regarded as two of the greatest novels in world literature. Rosamund Bartlett`s exceptional biography of this brilliant, maddening & contrary man draws on key Russian sources, including the many fascinating new materials which have been published about Tolstoy & his legacy since the collapse of the Soviet Union.