Childhood. Boyhood. Youth.

An astonishing, poignant, and lyrical trilogy in which Leo Tolstoy infused many autobiographical motifs. Before the reader’s eyes, day by day, unfolds the life of Nikolai Irtinev, a boy from an aristocratic Russian family—childhood games, relationships with friends, first love, the death of his mother, and the absurd and funny mistakes of his first steps “in society,” which seemed fateful and tragic in his youth. The trilogy’s protagonist grows up literally before our eyes—and we cannot help but experience his joys and sorrows, his triumphs and defeats, as our own.