Boyhood

He survived childhood. Now comes the harder part: becoming someone.

In this second installment of Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy, young Nikolenka returns—older, more confused, and beginning to suspect that the world is far more complicated than he once believed.

The loss of his mother still echoes. The family estate feels different now. Nikolenka is no longer a child, but not yet a man—and every day brings fresh humiliations, sudden cruelties, and bewildering glimpses of grown-up passions. A tutor's unfair punishment. A first, fumbling awareness of social class. The strange, painful realization that other people have inner lives as rich and secret as his own. Tolstoy renders these moments with the same breathtaking precision that marked Childhood, but here the light is harsher, the shadows longer. Boyhood is not nostalgia—it is the slow, awkward dismantling of a child's certainties.

This is Tolstoy at his most psychologically acute: a novel about the mortifying, glorious, and utterly necessary business of growing up. Boyhood stands as a bridge between the innocence of youth and the disillusionments that wait just ahead.

• The essential middle chapter of Tolstoy's autobiographical trilogy

• A masterful exploration of shame, social awakening, and the loss of childhood's protective shell

• Indispensable for readers tracing the development of Tolstoy's literary voice

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears—or the perfect gift for anyone who remembers how it felt to be caught between two worlds.

About the Author

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) is one of the greatest novelists in world literature, author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. His autobiographical trilogy—Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth—written in his twenties, established his reputation for psychological realism and moral inquiry that would define his monumental later works and his influence on literature, philosophy, and social thought.