26 JULY 1890, Page 23

Boyhood, Adolescence, and Youth. By L4on Tolstoi. Translated by Constantine

Popoff. (Elliot Stock.)—A curious, photographic picture of the author's life, covering some ten years, beginning shortly after his tenth birthday, and ending with his being plucked in one of the university examinations, an event which we may perhaps conjecturally assign to his twentieth year. Count Tolstoi has such a marvellous power of making his readers realise the moods of others, that we may well expect all possible vividness in this portrayal of his own mind. This is, of course, the main interest of the volume ; but if the pictures of Russian manners are so far inferior, they are also excellent.