Leo Tolstoy was born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, and is considered to be one of the greatest authors of all time. His novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina best illustrate the dramatic scope and intense realism which became his trademark and stand as a testament to his extraordinary observational powers. The poet Matthew Arnold wrote that a novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art, but a piece of life. Tolstoy's own wartime experiences culminated in his conversion to pacifist and spiritual anarchist, and his ideas on non-violent resistance had a profound influence on 20th-century figures such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.