Tolstoy And His Message

1904. Biography and assessment of Leo Tolstoy's spiritual quest, philosophy and teachings by Crosby, his leading contemporary follower in the United States. Contents: Tolstoy's Boyhood and Manhood; His Great Spiritual Crisis; His Answer to the Riddle of Life; The Basis of his Moral and Social Code; His Teaching Tested by the Christian Spirit; The Christian Teaching in Practice; and The Tolstoy of Today. Along with Fyodor Dostoevsky, one of the giants of 19th Century Russian literature, and widely regarded as among the greatest of novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist fiction. Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist, and educational reformer made him the most influential member of the aristocratic Tolstoy family.