Leo Tolstoy – A Confession

One of the most remarkable artifacts in literature, A Confession was written at the height of Tolstoy’s fame, yet at a time of profound spiritual crisis. Having reached his intellectual and financial goals with the publication of works such as Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Tolstoy was left with the most difficult of questions: ‘Is there any meaning in my life that will not be destroyed by my death?’

Its search and its message is starkly contemporary.

“Well, you will have 6,000 destyatinas of land in Samara Government and 300 horses, and what then? … Very well; you will be more famous than Gogol or Pushkin or Shakespeare or Moliere, or than all the writers in the world – and what of it?” I could find no reply at all.

And yet, he felt the Church’s doctrine was too full of lies for it to be swallowed whole. His confession had to be made, and his own answer had to be reasoned out, bit by bit. You can read more about his conclusions, and order it from Amazon, here.