The Cossacks is believed to be somewhat autobiographical, partially based on Tolstoy's experiences in the Caucasus during the last stages of the Caucasian War. Tolstoy had a morally corrupt experience in his youth, engaging in numerous promiscuous partners, heavy drinking and gambling problems; many argue Tolstoy used his own past as inspiration for the protagonist Olenin.

Anthologie en cinq volumes des principaux contes et nouvelles de l'auteur.

Although the story is usually considered a children's fairy tale, it is also used as an indication of Tolstoy's political leanings in support of Christian anarchism. Though his brothers are easily tempted by money and military power, unsophisticated Ivan, with his simple way of life, defeats the treacherous devil. Ivan eventually becomes the ruler of the country despite the lack of a standing army or currency. All of the citizens are welcome at Ivan's table, where workers are fed first and intellectuals (those without calluses on their hands) have to eat the leftovers.

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (9 September O.S. 28 August] 1828 - 20 November O.S. 7 November] 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, he is best known for the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction.

Youth is the third novel in Leo Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy, following Childhood and Boyhood. It was first published in the popular Russian literary magazine Sovremennik.

Childhood is the first published novel by Leo Tolstoy, released under the initials L. N. in the November 1852 issue of the popular Russian literary journal The Contemporary. It is the first in a series of three novels and is followed by Boyhood and Youth. Published when Tolstoy was just twenty-three years old, the book was an immediate success, earning notice from other Russian novelists including Ivan Turgenev, who heralded the young Tolstoy as a major up-and-coming figure in Russian literature.

Ivan Ilyich lives a carefree life that is "most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible." Like everyone he knows, he spends his life climbing the social ladder. Enduring marriage to a woman whom he often finds too demanding, he works his way up to be a magistrate, thanks to the influence he has over a friend who has just been promoted, focusing more on his work as his family life becomes less tolerable.