Count Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 on the family estate of Yasnaya
Polyana, in the Tula province. He took part in the Crimean war and after
the defence of Sevastopol wrote The Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6), which
established his literary reputation. He is the author, among many other
works, of War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877) and A
Confession (1879-82).
Ronald Wilks has translated widely from the Russian, including for Penguin works by Gorky, Gogol and Chekhov.
Hugh
McLean has published widely on Russian literature, including
contributing an essay on "The Countryside" to The Cambridge Companion to
the Classic Russian Novel and one on Tolstoy's Resurrection to The
Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy.
Paul Foote was, until his retirement, a University Lecturer in Russian and Fellow of the Queen's College, Oxford.