Sevastopol

In three sketches, Leo Tolstoy describes the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War, where he served as a young artillery officer. 'Sevastopol in December' leads the reader through the besieged city and its field hospitals, where the wounded lie in terrible suffering; 'Sevastopol in May' follows officers whose vanity and ambition carry on even under fire; and 'Sevastopol in August' tells of two brothers in the final assault, as the city falls. 'The hero of my tale,' he writes, 'is truth.'

Published in 1855 and 1856 while the war was still being fought, the sketches made Tolstoy's name and were among the first works of literature to show modern war without glory; the tsar is said to have asked that the young officer be kept out of danger. Isabel Hapgood made the translation. They prepare the way for War and Peace.

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), born at Yasnaya Polyana and a veteran of the Crimean War, wrote two of the summits of the novel, War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

In later life he preached simplicity and non-violence in The Kingdom of God Is Within You, a book that deeply influenced Gandhi.