Now a major motion picture starring Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McAvoy.

The year is 1910 and Leo Tolstoy, the most celebrated figure in Russia, is frail with old age. Devotees jostle for his favour and the press documents his every move.

Vladimir Chertkov leads the Tolstoyan movement, built around Tolstoy's values of pacifism, chastity and social equity. But to Tolstoy's wife, Sofya, Chertkov is another sycophant competing for her husband's affections and, more importantly, his estate.

Young acolyte Valentin Bulgakov has just been appointed Tolstoy's secretary. Taken into the great author's home and life, he finds himself in the middle of the battle between Chertkov and Sofya.

Drawing on the writing of Tolstoy and his intimates, dancing bewitchingly between fact and fiction, The Last Station evokes the conflicts that raged around and within this genius.

'What lifts this book high above most historical novels is Jay Parini's remarkable ability to enter the minds of his characters.' New York Times Book Review