Leo Tolstoy (September 9, 1828 - November 20, 1910) was a Russian writer who earned fame and global renown for his novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Writing during the late 19th century, Tolstoy lived during a literary period in which Realism flourished, and today his two novels are considered the apex of realist fiction. Dostoevsky himself declared Anna Karenina "flawless as a work of art," and it is invariably included among discussions of the greatest novels ever.