Childhood, Boyhood and Youth (riverrun editions)

(Paperback)

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'The beautiful illusion, when reading Tolstoy, is that one is looking directly at the world, as opposed to a depiction' Andrew O'Hagan from his preface to Childhood, Boyhood and Youth

Published in 1852, when he was just twenty-four, Childhood was Tolstoy's first published work, and the first of a trilogy of stories that evoke the upbringing and traditional education of a Russian aristocrat in a world that vanished with the revolution. In this self-portrait, narrated by its protagonist Nikolya, the young Tolstoy captured the textures of adolescence with a psychological insight and subtlety of analysis that look forward to his mature achievements; while his matchless objectivity - summoning the smells, sights and sounds of early childhood - is already fully present in these pages.

The riverrun edition reissues the translation of Louise and Aylmer Maude, whose influential versions of Tolstoy first brought his work to a wide readership in English.

Author Bio

Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) is regarded as one of the greatest Russian writers of all time. He received multiple nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize. He is best known for the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He also wrote plays and numerous philosophical essays.

Andrew O'Hagan is a Booker Prize shortlisted novelist and journalist and author of Be Near Me and Mayflies.