Leo Tolstoy, born Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, was a Russian writer renowned as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time. He was born on 9 September 1828 (O.S. 28 August) and died on 20 November 1910 (O.S. 7 November).

Tolstoy achieved early acclaim with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood and Youth (1852–1856), and with Sevastopol Sketches (1855), based on his experiences in the Crimean War. His masterpieces, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1878), are often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction and among the greatest novels ever written.

In addition to novels, Tolstoy's oeuvre includes short stories such as Alyosha the Pot (1905) and After the Ball (1911), and novellas like Family Happiness (1859), The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), and Hadji Murad (1912). He also wrote plays and essays on philosophical, moral, and religious themes.

In the 1870s, Tolstoy underwent a significant moral crisis followed by a spiritual awakening, which led him to become a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist. His book The Kingdom of God Is Within You (1894) influenced figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Tolstoy was a proponent of Georgism, the economic philosophy of Henry George, which he incorporated into his writings, notably in Resurrection (1899). Despite being nominated multiple times, he never won a Nobel Prize, which remains a notable controversy.

He was praised by many authors and critics, with Virginia Woolf calling him "the greatest of all novelists."