Childhood, Boyhood, Youth

About the book

A new, definitive translation of Tolstoy's early autobiographical trilogy Leo Tolstoy began his trilogy, "Childhood; Boyhood; Youth," in his early twenties. Although he would in his old age famously dismiss it as an 'awkward mixture of fact and fiction', generations of readers have not agreed, finding the novel to be a charming and insightful portrait of inner growth against the background of a world limned with extraordinary clarity, grace and color. Evident too in its brilliant account of a young person's emerging awareness of the world and of his place within it are many of the stances, techniques and themes that would come to full flower in the immortal "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina," and in the other great works of Tolstoy's maturity. Prizewinning translator Judson Rosengrant has stunningly realized Tolstoy's voice in English prose to make this new Penguin Classics edition of "Childhood; Boyhood; Youth" the "definitive translation. . . in this generation" (Janet Fitch).