A History of Yesterday (История вчерашнего дня) is a non-fiction diary entry by Leo Tolstoy[1] written in 1851 and later republished in English in 1928, and then again in 1949, when it was translated by George Kline. It is one of his earliest-written pieces available in English.
According to Salon in 2015, Tolstoy said his choice to write this work was "not because yesterday was extraordinary in any way... but because I have long wished to tell the innermost [zadushevnuiu] side of life in one day. God only knows how many diverse... impressions and thoughts... "[2]
Author A. N. Wilson describes the diary entry as a description of Tolstoy's early indolence, about how he was transformed, about his soirées (parties) at the residence of the Volkonsky's in Moscow, and describes it as a "snapshot of some of the undeveloped elements of his genius before they 'gelled' or came together."[3]