Youth

"Youth," known in Russian as "Юность," was published in 1857. This work completes Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy, following "Childhood" and "Boyhood". It is sometimes translated as "Jünglingsjahre" in German. The story, presented as an autobiographical novella in the style of critical realism, describes the protagonist Nikolai Irteniev's process of growing up and the formation of his personality. It continues his story, depicting his life with his parents, brother Volodya, and sister Lyuba in a provincial estate, detailing his relationships with tutors and servants.

This work is rich with personal confessions from this period of Tolstoy's life. It studies what he termed "the desert of youth," a period characterized by intense intellectual ferment, where the protagonist discovers and experiments with several philosophical systems, including Stoicism and Epicureanism. The story's focus on the internal world of a developing individual, alongside the external events that shape his consciousness, positions it as a notable precursor to Tolstoy's later, more expansive psychological novels.

This critical reader's edition presents a modern translation of the original manuscript, crafted for the modern reader with clean, modern language and simplified sentence structures that clarify his difficult Russian phrasing and specific antiquated references. Supplementary material enriches the text with autobiographical, historical, and linguistic setting, including an afterword by the translator on Tolstoy's personal history, impact, and intellectual legacy, an index of the philosophical concepts he employs, giving attention to Existentialism and influence by Schopenhauer, a complete chronological list of his published writings, and a detailed timeline of his life, showing the personal relationships that shaped his philosophy.