Leo Tolstoy was born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, and is considered to be one of the greatest authors of all time. His novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina best illustrate the dramatic scope and intense realism which became his trademark and stand as a testament to his extraordinary observational powers. The poet Matthew Arnold wrote that a novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art, but a piece of life. Tolstoy's own wartime experiences culminated in his conversion to pacifist and spiritual anarchist, and his ideas on non-violent resistance had a profound influence on 20th-century figures such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Husband and wife Aylmer and Louise Maude were the most famous early translators of Leo Tolstoy. They had the great advantage of knowing Tolstoy and Aylmer was his authorized biographer. Of their translations Tolstoy wrote, 'Better translations, both for knowledge of the two languages and for penetration into the very meaning of the matter translated, could not be invented.'