The task of writing a biography on a subject as monumentally complex as Leo Tolstoy demands of an author a combination of talents almost Tolstoyan in breadth and scope. Henri Troyat is such an author, and this biography of Tolstoy, says Genêt in THE NEW YORKER, "is at last the final, complete portrait of the man as he surely was." Under M. Troyat's guidance, one is led to understand why Tolstoy is considered one of the most bizarre personalities of modern times; why he was regarded by his contemporaries not only as a literary giant but also as a gargantuan enigma. Tolstoy fascinated the people of his own time. In these pages, that fascination is reborn in the story of a man who was the personification of Man at all times, who was in reality two men, "one saint, the other a libertine--clothed in the same skin and constantly at war." As a writer, lover, husband, father, and cult leader, this extraordinary human being was a mass of contradictions. He was a man who, though born a nobleman, had an overriding ambition to be a peasant. As a youth, his world was gambling, wine, and wenching, but as a man he was bent on reforming the world in the image of Christian love. Despising violence, he made a fortune writing about war. His WAR AND PEACE is regarded by many as the greatest novel ever written, but, in time, Tolstoy became increasingly dissatisfied with fiction. Longing for universal brotherhood, he was unable to find love in his own family. Famous and revered beyond any of his contemporaries, he died almost alone and alienated from the world. Such is the Tolstoy of whom M. Troyat writes. But, TOLSTOY is more than a biography. It is also a recapturing of the scent, the scene, the color of Russia in the mid-nineteenth century, a book rich in the fabric of history. It is a book that is itself Tolstoyan, bursting with life, ideas, humanity, charity, spitefulness, love, war, peace, and passion.

Henri Troyat