ABSTRACT
Leo Tolstoy was born at Yasnaya Polyana, Russia, in 1828. War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1873-76) are his two most celebrated and ambitious works and certain of inclusion in almost any list of the greatest novels of all time. While writing the latter, Tolstoy became more and more concerned with religion, and during the second half of his life he devoted himself almost wholly to writing on moral and religious subjects. His later works include essays, plays, stories, and another great novel, Resurrection (1899). In 1901, the Orthodox church excommunicated him. He died in 1910 at Astapovo, Russia.
