THE TOLSTOY HOME: Diaries of Tatiana Sukhotin-Tolstoy

These are a series of intermittent diaries kept by Leo Tolstoy's oldest daughter from 1878, when she was 14 years old, to 1911, the year following her father's death. Interspersed in them are items of interest to Tolstoy scholars such as the family row precipitated by Tolstoy's determination to give his land to the peasants and make the copyrights of his books common property, and the love and respect Tatiana and her siblings felt for their famous father and for their home, the Tolstoy country estate, Yasnaia Poliana. In a totally different vein, it is interesting to read a young Victorian girl's fear and disgust at the thought of marriage-feelings that were easily dissipated once she had become a matron. Tatiana's social position as a countess and her father's beliefs were mutually contradictory--and enabled the girl to have such varied experiences as full-dress Moscow balls and harvesting grain at her father's side. There is a wealth of information here on life in Russia during the ancien regime, but the appeal is specialized.