Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), also transliterated as Lev or Lyof Nikolayevich Tolstoi, spent most of his life on his family estate near Moscow engrossed in his personal studies. As a youth he lived a free and restless life, but became socially active in the 1850s, fighting to improve the lot of the serfs. He later served in the army in the Caucasus, at this time working on his first novel, Detstvo (1852; Childhood). This work gained notice in Russian literary circles and was praised by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Turgenev. Tolstoy's experience serving in the Caucasus was the impetus for short stories such as "Nabeg" ("The Raid") and his military service in the Crimean War is described in his Sevastopol sketches. Other short stories and short novels were published during this time such as "Dva gusara" ("Two Hussars"), "Tri smerti" ("Three Deaths"), and "Kazaki" (1863; "The Cossacks"). These works...