"With all my soul I longed to be in a position to join with the people in performing the rites of their faith, but I could not do it. I felt that I would be lying to myself, mocking what was sacred to me, if I were to go through with it."
At the height of his fame, a Tolstoy in his mid-fifties went through an existential crisis. Despite an accomplished writing career and a good family life, Tolstoy was considering suicide. Instead, he wrote A Confession, which describes his search for the answer to the question, "What is the meaning of life?", making him one of the first to pose the problem it in a modern way.
A Confession is an interesting and heart-wrenching essay for religious people and atheists alike.


Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world’s greatest novelists. Tolstoy’s major works include "War and Peace" (1865–69) and "Anna Karenina" (1875–77), two of the greatest novels of all time and pinnacles of realist fiction. Beyond novels, he wrote many short stories and later in life also essays and plays.