CONTAINS A FORWARD BY DORIS LESSING This title contains Sofia Tolstoy's extensive diaries, which cover the years from 1862 to 1910. When she married Count Leo Tolstoy, the author of "War and Peace", husband and wife regularly exchanged diaries. Her life was not an easy one: she idealized her husband, but was tormented by him; even her many children were not an unmitigated blessing. From the state of the great writer's stomach and the progress of his work, to the fierce and painful arguments that would eventually divide the couple for ever, Sofia's diaries are both compelling and extraordinarily revealing.And in the background is one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history: the transition from old feudal Russia to the three revolutions and three major international wars. Yet it is as Sofia Tolstoy's own life story, the study of one woman's private experience, that the diaries are most valuable and moving. They are a testament to a woman of tremendous vital energy and poetic sensibility who, in the face of provocation and suffering, continued to strive for the higher things in life and to remain indomitable.