Dos Passos and Tolstoy

Another discovery in re-reading the 2 biographies of John Dos Passos–his fondness of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. He gave a copy of it to his goddaughter Susan Lowndes for her 13th birthday (Maybe a bit too soon). He advised, “If you’ve already read it, read it again–I always get something new out of it.” Summer 1960, he attended an international conference in Venice that was celebrating Tolstoy 50 years after his death. There Dos Passos acknowledged his debt to the Russian author.