Leo Tolstoy(1828-1910) was born into one of the grand old families of Imperial Russia. The loss of both of his parents during childhood was the prelude to a series of incidents which made his life as highly coloured as any of his great works of fiction. Whether as a dissolute layabout in the gambling saloons and brothels of Moscow and St Petersburg, as an artillery officer in the Crimean War or as an enlightened landowner educating his peasants and working in the fields, he had abundant energy and was in all areas a giant. Yet he was full of paradoxes, most clearly seen in his tempestuous marriage to Sofya Behrs - one of the most closely documented and perhaps one of the most painful, human relationships in history.