Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in Tula Province, Russia. He is best known for the novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semiautobiographical trilogy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth and Sevastopol Sketches, based upon his experiences in the Crimean War. Tolstoy’s fiction includes dozens of short stories and several novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Family Happiness, and Hadji Murad. He also wrote plays and numerous philosophical essays. Tolstoy died on November 20, 1910 in Astapovo, Russia.