'Yasnaya Polyana School' is a publication written by Leo Tolstoy about the school for peasant children that he opened at his home. He delineates the curriculum, the schedule, and the number of classes held, while also including anecdotes such as a fight between two of the pupils and a thieving student.

In the years before he wrote War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy founded and ran a school on his estate at Yasanya Polyana. Brimming with progressive and sometimes radical ideas on schooling, Tolstoy undertook to teach the peasant children many subjects-including imaginative writing-and wrote about what he learned. This is a book for anyone who cares about education.

This biography of the brilliant author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina “should become the first resort for everyone drawn to its titanic subject” (Booklist, starred review). In November 1910, Count Lev Tolstoy died at a remote Russian railway station. At the time of his death, he was the most famous man in Russia, more revered than the tsar, with a growing international following. Born into an aristocratic family, Tolstoy spent his existence rebelling against not only conventional ideas about literature and art but also traditional education, family life, organized religion, and the state. In “an epic biography that does justice to an epic figure,” Rosamund Bartlett draws extensively on key Russian sources, including fascinating material that has only become available since the collapse of the Soviet Union (Library Journal, starred review). She sheds light on Tolstoy’s remarkable journey from callow youth to writer to prophet; discusses his troubled relationship with his wife, Sonya; and vividly evokes the Russian landscapes Tolstoy so loved and the turbulent times in which he lived.