Summary: Publisher Summary 1 The award-winning author of God's Funeralexplores the contradictions and improbabilities of the renowned novelist's character, using new close readings in Russian of much of his work and reexamining the historical context in which it was produced. Reprint.   Publisher Summary 2 "Must surely rank among the most impressively intelligent biographies ever written."--Zena Sutherland, The Economist   Publisher Summary 3 In this landmark biography of Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, A. N. Wilson narrates the complex drama of the writer's life: his childhood of aristocratic privilege but emotional deprivation, his discovery of his literary genius after aimless years of gambling and womanizing, and his increasingly disastrous marriage. Wilson sweeps away the long-held belief that Tolstoy's works were the exact mirror of his life, and instead traces the roots of Tolstoy's art to his relationship with God, with women, and with Russia. He also breaks new ground in recreating the world that shaped the great novelist's life and art-the turmoil of ideas and politics in nineteenth-century Russia and the incredible literary renaissance that made Tolstoy's work possible. "Admirable. . . . Absorbing. . . . Superb."-Anthony Burgess "Stands as a model of the biographer's art: intelligent and opinionated, yet judicious-and, what's more, deliciously readable."-Michiko Kakutani, New York Times