These three connected early novels from the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina form an intimate portrait of Russian youth.

Begun when Leo Tolstoy was just twenty-three years old and stationed at a remote army outpost in the Caucasus Mountains, his work known as the Autobiographical Trilogy would win immediate fame and critical praise years before works like War and Peace and Anna Karenina would bring him to the forefront of Russian literature.

Here is the story of a young man—the son of a wealthy Russian landowner—who describes in exquisite detail both the landmarks and minutiae of his life, from his interactions with other people to observations on the nature of both himself and the world around him. As told by Nikolenka from the ages of ten to sixteen, it is a brilliantly insightful recollection of the formative years of life—with all of the ebullient joy and crushing heartbreak it entails—that still resonates in our modern world.

Originally planned as a four-part series of novels tentatively called the “Four Epochs of Growth,” the completed works together form a remarkable expression of the great Russian novelist’s early voice and vision, which would ultimately make him one of the most renowned and revered authors in literary history.

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