by OLGA FRANKLIN with Boris Isarov 'as Lev Tolstoy
An impression of Tolstoy's only visit to London. In 1861 he was 33 years old, with a considerable literary reputation in his own country. He was also an impoverished member of the Russian aristocracy, disdainful, unpredictable, quarrelsome and practically toothless. In bis trunk, together with a fashionable new suit, he carried the first draft, live times rewritten, of a new novel - War and Peace.
England is thought the most civilised country in the world. I want none of it. This kind of civilisation repels me. I feel a positive nausea. Narrator GABRIEL WOOLF
Directed by JOHN THEOCHARIS