Call Number:

C1241

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

1 box

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Leo Tolstoy Collection, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1890-1925 (inclusive)

Creator:

Princeton University. Library. Special Collections and Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910

Form:

Correspondence -- 19th century, Hectograph process (copying process), Manuscripts, Russian -- 19th century., Photomechanical processes -- Russia -- 19th century., and Portraits.

Abstract:

Consists of selected material by and about the noted Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.

Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist and philosopher, is considered one of the world's greatest writers. Tolstoy was born of a noble family at Yasnaya Polyana, his parents' estate near Tula in Russia.

It was while he was in the army that he wrote the first of his autobiographical trilogy Childhood (1852). Tolstoy's masterpiece writings are War and Peace (1862–1869) and Anna Karenina (1873–76). Tolstoy went through a period of puritanism and self-examination which resulted in his conversion to the doctrine of Christian love and acceptance of the principle of nonresistance to evil. He was an anarchist to the extent that he considered wrong all organizations based on the premise of force, including both the government and the church. However, because of his prestige, the government did not interfere with his activities, although the Russian Church excommunicated him in 1901. Moral questions are central to Tolstoy's later works, which include the novel The Kreutzer Sonata (1889).

The collection consists of correspondence by and about Tolstoy, a portrait of Tolstoy, and a copy of Tolstoy's Kreĭt︠s︡erova sonata. There is a signed autograph letter from Tolstoy to Benedict L. Prieth, Princeton Class of 1891, dated January 30 - February 12, 1907, concerning the death of Ernest Howard Crosby, the American author and friend of Tolstoy. The letter is written in English from his father's estate, "Yasnaya Polyana"" There are two other letters regarding Tolstoy's letter to Prieth. The first is from Eberhard L. Faber, Princeton Class of 1915, dated November 20, 1925. In his letter, Faber forwards to his uncle, Benedict Prieth, a letter from Ernest Crosby and the above mentioned letter from Tolstoy, and informs his uncle of the value of that letter. The second letter is from Benedict Prieth to Philip B. Townley, again forwarding the same Tolstoy letter and pointing to its unusual dates; he asks Townley to retain it for safekeeping.

The portrait is in blue and white pencil and crayon by L. L. Tolstoi (Tolstoy's son), drawn from memory on January 2, 1922, in Paris. It bears an inscription and the signature of the younger Tolstoy on the verso. The manuscript copy of Tolstoy's Kreĭt︠s︡erova sonata, which is based on Ludwig van Beethoven's "Kreutzer sonata," is a hectograph process reproduction of a handwritten text in Russian. This copy (109 pp., 29 x 19.1 cm.) bears the inscription of N. Simonov and the date 1890 on p.1 of the wrapper.

Folders are arranged in alphabetical order.