Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author with his full name Lev Nikolayevich, Graf (count) Tolstoy, was born in 1828, in the Yasnaya Polyana, Tula province of the Russian Empire. A master of realistic fiction, Leo Tolstoy is also often spelled as Tolstoi. Tolstoy goes down into the history of mankind for his two exemplary works that he is best known for. These are also two of his longest works, namely, War and Peace (1865–69) and Anna Karenina (1875–77). These novels are among the finest and most popular novels ever written in the history of English literature.

The extraordinary quality that pervades Tolstoy’s work is that his imagination was never daunted or limited. His genius and creative mind has helped him find a way into the masses, and even melted all language barriers. The world drawn by him is immensely large, and his characters have their own life and their own ways and encompasses a huge and diverse kaleidoscopic culture, thoughts, ideas and mannerisms. His novels are intensely realistic. His works oscillate between scepticism and dogmatism and he patiently explores the most diverse approaches to human experience.

Tolstoy’s uncannily realistic portrayal of the contemporary Russian society mingles with his rich narrative and dynamic characters and creates a mesmerizing web of deeper sense of realization and philosophical reflection. Tolstoy’s observational powers overwhelm the readers and he never misses to record even the slightest details of a movement of change in consciousness. His writings are embodiments of nature and vitality.

He had lost his mother at a very young age and was under the guardianship of his grandmother briefly before being shifted under the care of aunt Aleksandra in 1841 and then aunt Kazan. His first published work, Detstvo written in 1852, is a fictional and nostalgic account of his early days. Tolstoy kept on recording his life’s events in the form of diaries throughout his life with some brief interruptions, and therefore he is one of the most documented writers in the literary world.