First Recollections
Journal: New England review
Year: 2023

First Recollections Leo Tolstoy LEO [Lev Nikolayevich] TOLSTOY (1828–1910) is generally regarded as one of the towering figures of world literature. Virginia Woolf unequivocally named him "the greatest of all novelists," a judgment largely based upon her reading of War and Peace; for his part, asked to list what he thought were the three greatest novels, William Faulkner promptly replied: "Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina, and Anna Karenina." But beyond these and other celebrated depictions of compl