Zhukovsky, Vasily A., 508
Zimmcrmann's Music Shop, 658
Zinaida, character in tale written by Sonya
Behrs. 247 Zola, Јmile, 383, 434, 487, 688 Zurich, 184
Zvcgintscv, Mrs., 637, 674 Zybin brothers, 48
(Continued from front flap)
who, though horn a nobleman, had an overriding ambition to he a peasant. As a youth, his world was gambling, wine, and wenching, but as a man he was bent on reforming the world in the image of Christian love. Despising violence, he made a fortune writing about war. His War and Peace is regarded by many as the greatest novel ever written, but, in time, Tolstoy became increasingly dissatisfied with fiction. Longing for universal brotherhood, he was unable to find love in his own family. Famous and revered beyond any of his contemporaries, he died almost alone and alienated from the world.
Such is the Tolstoy of whom M. Troyat writes. But, Tolstoy is more than a biography. It is also a recapturing of the scent, die scene, the color of Russia in the mid-nineteenth century, a book rich in the fabric of history. It is a book that is itself Tolstoyan, bursting with life, ideas, humanity, charity, and spitefulness, love, war, peace, and passion. It is a book about which Andre Maurois said, "Troyat has written exactly what I should have liked to write." One may imagine that it is also a book Tolstoy himself might have written. And in a sense he has, for skillfully woven into the text are dozens of excerpts from his writings. Tolstoy dominates the work and speaks unforgettably through it.
jacket design by richard iiuebner
jacket photograph by geohce adams
Printed in the U.S.A.
PHOTO Br FAVARO
Henri Troyat, member of the Academie Frangaise and winner of the Prix Goncourt, has had many novels published in this country. He is also a noted biographer, and his Firebrand: The Life of Dostoevski) and Pushkin were highly acclaimed. Now, M. Troyat's Tolstoy is greeted with lavish praise by the French press: "The word masterpiece is not excessive," said Emile Bouvier in Midi Libre; "a masterpiece of biography," wrote Andre Therive; and Jean Mistier in L'Aurore called it a "great book."