About the book:
Yes, that Tolstoy Nikolai is a direct descendant of Leo, and something of the ancestral weight shows in his ambition.
Merlin narrates his own age the real dark ages, before Arthur became legend, when Britain was fragmented and strange and the old world was collapsing into something new.
Tolstoy builds this from folklore, chronicle, and deep scholarship, and the result is genuinely mythic rather than merely medieval.
Some readers, and not casually, have called it superior to The Lord of the Rings less invented, more haunted, rooted in an actual mythological tradition rather than a constructed one.
Dense and deliberate. Not for the impatient, essential for the right reader.
Condition:
Good secondhand condition.
Wear to cover.
Mild age related tanning to pages.
Pages well bound.
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About the author:
Nikolai Tolstoy (1935 to present)
Count Nikolai Dmitrievich Tolstoy-Miloslavsky was born on June 23, 1935, in London, England, into the exiled branch of the noble Tolstoy family. The son of Count Dimitri Tolstoy and Mary Wicksteed, he grew up as the stepson of the acclaimed novelist Patrick OBrian after his parents divorce. Raised with a strong sense of his Russian aristocratic heritage despite life in Britain, he was educated at Wellington College and Trinity College Dublin. His early exposure to both British and Russian cultures, along with family stories of exile and loss, deeply shaped a worldview rooted in historical truth, cultural preservation, and moral courage in the face of political injustice.
Nikolai Tolstoys literary breakthrough came with historical and biographical works that blended rigorous scholarship with compelling narrative. His distinctive stylemeticulous research combined with passionate advocacyhas illuminated forgotten or controversial episodes of 20th-century history. Major achievements include groundbreaking studies on Soviet repatriation policies and Celtic mythology, establishing him as a respected historian and writer who continues the Tolstoy familys tradition of intellectual engagement with societys pressing questions.
Influenced by his ancestor Leo Tolstoys moral clarity, the historical novels of Patrick OBrian, and classical historians, Nikolai Tolstoy also drew from scholars of Russian and Celtic history. He, in turn, has influenced contemporary historians and writers interested in wartime atrocities, forced repatriation, and Arthurian legend. Adjacent authors and thinkers include Robert Conquest, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and other chroniclers of Soviet-era crimes, as well as figures in British historical biography and myth studies such as Geoffrey Ashe.
Recurring themes in Tolstoys work include the human cost of political decisions, the importance of historical memory, exile and identity, justice for victims of totalitarianism, and the enduring power of myth. Major works include Victims of Yalta (1977), The Minister and the Massacres (1986), The Tolstoys: Twenty-Four Generations of Russian History (1983), The Quest for Merlin (1985), Patrick OBrian: The Making of the Novelist (2004), and The Coming of the King (1988).
Now in his nineties, Nikolai Tolstoy remains an active voice as a historian, occasional political commentator, and nominal head of the Tolstoy family. His legacy bridges the literary and historical worlds, carrying forward the Tolstoy name into the modern era. His unique contribution lies in fearlessly resurrecting suppressed truths from the past while enriching our understanding of both Russian heritage and ancient myth with scholarly passion and moral conviction.
