Count Leo Tolstoy, author of Anna Karenina and War and Peace, had a Book of Mormon in the library at his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, according to this article in the Mormon Times. “Frederick and Nataliya Felt were attending the Laurel Ward of the Silver Springs Stake in Washington, D.C., when a Russian member told them that Tolstoy’s library contained a copy of the Book of Mormon. Their initial intrigue turned into a quest to discover its origin story.”

“‘I was surprised to learn that Tolstoy had a Book of Mormon,” Frederick told the Mormon Times, “‘I wondered how (he had obtained it) since the church didn’t have missionaries in Russia during his lifetime.”

Frederick, along with his wife Natalya, who is of Russian origin, set off to Yasnaya Polyana, now a Tolstoy museum, to learn more about the book. According to the Times report, “A librarian at the museum searched her records and photocopied a catalog reference to the Book of Mormon. ‘It identified the exact cabinet, shelf and volume number,’ Frederick said. More importantly, the reference indicated that the book was a gift given to Tolstoy by Susa Young Gates, daughter of Brigham Young, women’s rights advocate and a writer.”

The book was inscribed “Count Leo Tolstoy, from Susa Young Gates. Salt Lake City, Utah.”

“Gates carried on intellectual correspondence with Tolstoy, William Dean Howells, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and other prominent literary figures during her lifetime. English Ph.D. Lisa Tait, who has presented at the BYU Studies Symposium on Gates and is currently working on her biography, said she would not be surprised if Gates, as an afficionada of classic literature, got in contact with Tolstoy on impulse,” reported the Times, ‘“Knowing her and her amazing self-assurance, she probably just wrote a letter to him cold,’ Tait said.”

“The curator helped the Felts consult Tolstoy’s diary where they found an entry mentioning that he had received the book from Gates and had ‘read the book,’ the Times report continued, “‘Whether Tolstoy meant that he had read the book in its entirety or only in part wasn’t clear from the entry,’ Frederick said.”

The Felts took photographs of the book and the diary page. And, according to the Times, “Upon returning home, digital enhancement of some of the photos showed possible acid marks from fingerprints on the Book of Mormon‘s title page, ‘suggesting Tolstoy had paused there to read,’ Frederick said.”