<p>Published when Tolstoy was twenty-three, the book gained immediate notice among Russian writers including Ivan Turgenev, and heralded the young Tolstoy as a major figure in Russian letters.</p><p>Themes of shyness, self-image and self-improvement permeate the book, yet we are also exposed to a young Tolstoy’s wider descriptions of nature, art and the workings of the world.</p>