Writers’s reading lists: Leo Tostoy

From Tolstoy’s Letters, under the heading “WORKS WHICH MADE AN IMPRESSION,” Tolstoy divides his reading list into five distinct life-stages — and ranks each title.

CHILDHOOD – 14 

• “Great”:

1. Tales from The Thousand and One Nights (public library): The 40 Thieves, Prince Qam-al-Zaman
2. Pushkin’s Poems (public library): “Napoleon”

• “V. great”:

1. The Little Black Hen (public library) by Pogorelsky

• “Enormous”:

1. The story of Joseph from The Bible (public library)
2. The Byliny (public library) folk tales: Dobrynya Nikitich, Ilya Muromets, Alyosha Popovich

14 – 20

• “Great”:

1. The Conquest of Mexico (public library) by William Prescott
2. Tales of Good and Evil (public library) by Nikolai Gogol: “Overcoat,” “The Two Ivans,” “Nevsky Prospect”

• “V. great”:

1. A Sentimental Journey (public library) by Laurence Sterne
2. A Hero for Our Time (public library) by Mikhail Lermontov
3. The Hapless Anton by Dmitry Grigorovich
4. Polinka Saks (public library) by Aleksandr Druzhinin
5. A Sportsman’s Notebook (public library) by Ivan Turgenev
6. Dead Souls (public library) by Nikolai Gogol
7. Die Räuber (public library) by Friedrich Schiller
8. Yevgeny Onegin (public library) by Alexander Pushkin
9. Julie, or the New Heloise (public library) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• “Enormous”:

1. The Gospel of Matthew (public library): “Sermon on the Mount”
2. The Confessions (public library) by Jean Jacques-Rousseau
3. Emile: Or on Education (public library) by Jean Jacques-Rousseau
4. “Viy” from The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol (public library)
5. David Copperfield (public library) by Charles Dickens

20 – 35

• “Great”:

1. Poems (public library) by F.T. Tyutchev
2. Poems (public library) by Koltsov
3. The Iliad / The Odyssey (public library) by Homer*
4. Poems (public library) by Afanasy Fet
5. The Symposium and The Phaedo (public library) by Plato

• “V. great”:

1. Hermann and Dorothea (public library) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2. Notre-Dame de Paris (public library) by Victor Hugo

35 – 50

• “Great”:

1. The novels of Mrs. Henry Wood
2. The novels of George Eliot
3. The novels of Anthony Trollope

• “V. great”:

1. The Iliad / The Odyssey (public library) by Homer*
2. The Byliny (public library)
3. Xenophon’s Anabasis (public library)

• “Enormous”:

1. Les Misérables (public library) by Victor Hugo

50 – 63

• “Great”:

1. Discourse on Religious Subject (public library) by Theodore Parker
2. Robertson’s Sermons (public library)

• “V. great”:

1. The Book of Genesis (public library)
2. Progress and Poverty (public library) by Henry George
3. The Essence of Christianity (public library) by Ludwig Feuerbach

• “Enormous”:

1. The Complete Gospels* (public library)
2. Pensées (public library) by Blaise Pascal
3. Epictetus
4. Confucius and Mencius
5. The Lalita-Vistara: Or Memoirs Of The Early Life Of Sakya Sinha (public library) by Rajendralala Mitra
6. Lao-Tzu