By 1910, Leo Tolstoy, the world's most famous author, had become an almost religious figure, surrounded on his lavish estate by family and followers alike. Set in the tumultuous last year of the count's life, The Last Station centres on the battle for his soul waged by his wife and his leading disciple.
Torn between his professed doctrine of poverty and chastity on the one hand and the reality of his enormous wealth, his thirteen children, and a life of hedonism on the other, Tolstoy makes a dramatic flight from his home. Too ill to continue beyond the tiny station of Astapovo, he believes he is dying alone, while outside over one hundred newspapermen are awaiting hourly reports on his condition.
Narrated in six different voices, including Tolstoy's own from his diaries and literary works, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel that dances bewitchingly between fact and fiction.
- ISBN10 0006544835
- ISBN13 9780006544838
- Publish Date 28 March 1994 (first published 18 February 1993)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 6 December 1995
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Imprint Flamingo
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 304
- Language English
- URL http://harpercollins.co.uk