Count Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 on the family estate of Yasnaya Polyana in the Tula province. He married in 1862 & was the father of 13 children. Tolstoy managed the estate of Yasnaya Polyana & ran its peasant schools, while writing his great novels, "War & Peace" (1869) & "Anna Karenina" (1877). He died in 1910.
Aylmer Maude spent much of his life in Russia & was a personal friend of Tolstoy's.
Nigel J. Cooper recently retired from Middlesex University, where he was a principal lecturer in modern languages (Russian & French).
John Bayley is former Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford & the author of books on Tolstoy, Hardy, & Housman. He has also written several novels, & last year published a memoir, Elegy for Iris.