Today, Google is honoring famous Russian author Leo Tolstoy with a Doodle documenting some of his most important works, novels like Anna Karenina and War and Peace.

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana in 1828 into Russian nobility. Both of his parents died when he was very young, and he spent his childhood in the care of relatives. In his early years he studied law for a bit, had some troubles with gambling, and eventually joined the army. He first achieved some sort of attention with semi-autobiographical works like Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth in the mid 1850s.

Tolstoy is most widely known for his hefty works Anna Karenina and War and Peace, thought of by many as two of the greatest novels of all time. The former tells the story of a married woman and her affair with a wealthy Count and the latter tells the stories of multiple families through the lens of the Napoleonic Wars. War and Peace is considered one of the most important works of fiction of all time – as well as one of the longest.

Today’s Doodle recognizes these two works, as well as The Death of Ivan Ilyich.

Tolstoy is also remembered as a philosopher, short story writer, playwright, and essayist. Tolstoy died of pneumonia at a train station, at the age of 82.

Google’s Doodle honors Tolstoy’s 186th birthday.

Images via Google, Wikimedia Commons