- Over the last fifteen years of his life, Tolstoy collected and published the maxims of some of the world"s greatest masters of philosophy, religion and literature, adding his own contributions to various questions that preoccupied him in old age, such as faith and existence, as well as matters of everyday life. Banned in Russia under Communism, A Calendar of Wisdom was Tolstoy"s last major work, and one of his most popular both during and after his lifetime. This new translation by Roger Cockrell will offer today"s generation of readers the chance to discover, day by day, these edifying and carefully selected pearls of wisdom.