Countess Tolstoy Author

Countess Tolstoy (1844-1919) was married to Leo Tolstoy for forty-eight years. She first started keeping a diary when sixteen and continued until a month before her death. It is sometimes said that her diaries are more valuable for what they say about Tolstoy than her. Either way. they are remarkable and perhaps show in the end that despite the turbulence of their marriage, in the words of Professor R. F. Christian, the foremost Tolstoy scholar, 'She might have been happier with another man. Another woman might have been happier with him. It must be doubted, though, whether another woman would have made him happier.' Aylmer Maude (1858-1938) with his wife Louise Maude (1855-1939) were the most famous early translators of Leo Tolstoy. They had the great advantage of knowing Tolstoy and Aylmer was his authorized biographer. Of their translations Tolstoy wrote, 'Better translations, both for knowledge of the two languages and for penetration into the very meaning of the matter translated, could not be invented.'