The Life of Tolstoy: First Fifty Years by Aylmer Maude

The reason I have written this work is because so many among us are interested in Tolstoy and so few seem to understand him. It would seem therefore that an English Life of Tolstoy is needed, and having lived in Russia for twenty-three years, known Tolstoy well for several years, visited him frequently in Moscow, and stayed with him repeatedly at Yásnaya Polyána, I am perhaps as well qualified as any one to write it, especially as I have long made a careful study of his views. My wife and I have translated several of his works, have known people closely connected with him, and some ten years ago we took part in an unsuccessful ‘Tolstoy’ Colony; besides which I went to Canada at his wish to make arrangements for the Doukhobór migration, of which I subsequently wrote the history.