Best known for his great novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy remains one the most important nineteenth-century writers; throughout his career which spanned nearly three quarters of a century, he wrote fiction, journalistic essays and educational textbooks. The specially commissioned essays in The Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy do justice to the sheer volume of Tolstoy's writing. Key dimensions of his writing and life are explored in essays focusing on his relationship to popular writing, the issue of gender and sexuality in his fiction and his aesthetics. The introduction provides a brief, unified account of the man, for whom his art was only one activity among many. The volume is well supported by supplementary material including a detailed guide to further reading and a chronology of Tolstoy's life, the most comprehensive compiled in English to date. Altogether the volume provides an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike.

‘Indispensable for all who teach of study Tolstoy.’

Source: Rusistika

‘… it must be said that these are, without exception, very good essays … For Tolstoi specialists this book, like all good books, provides fertile ground for future research … for the more general reader this collection of clearly written essays, based on recent research, and including some useful websites, will be welcome. if it helps to bolster the study of Tolstoi in UK Russian departments it will be doubly welcome.’

Source: Slavonic & East European Review

‘… superb … Every essay in this collection exhibits a high quality of arguement, knowledge, insight and clarity of exposition. Specialists and general readers alike will want to read them all, and in so doing will find their understanding of Tolstoi, as man, artist and public figures, greatly enriched.’

Source: Journal of European Studies