In 1828, a baby boy of Russian nobility was born to Countess Maria Volkonsky (who died a couple of years later after giving birth to his younger sister) and Count Nicolay Ilyich Tolstoy. He grew up romping the fields and going on outings with his siblings and friends, often accompanied by his father and grandmother. Their house was a bustling, busy place, as the family often entertained guests for several days at a time. When friends or family members would come for a visit, they would put together plays, sing Russian and Gypsy songs, play the piano, and read stories and poetry aloud. This baby boy grew into a young man in the presence of many forms of literature, as the family home boasted of over twenty thousand books in over thirty different languages. He would often sit in his father's study, where he would listen to the Count read. Sometimes, the Count would let him recite memorized passages from Alexander Pushkin. When he was 13, after the death of his Aunt Aline (who became the children's guardian after the sudden death of their father, followed by the death of their grandmother), he traveled with his brothers to Kazan where he started preparations to enter Kazan University. He studied Arabic, Turkish, Latin, German, English, French, history, geography, and the literary works of famous authors. He did not finish college, as he did not agree to the conventional school system. A few years later, he began writing. Two of his most famous books are Anna Karenina and War and Peace.
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