Childhood, Boyhood and Youth (riverrun editions)

Leo Tolstoy

'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 Nikólya 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.

>