The Devil is a novella by Leo Tolstoy. It was written in 1889, given an alternative ending in 1909, but published only posthumously in 1911. Like Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata, written around the same time, "The Devil" deals with the consequences of sexual emotion.
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828 - 1910), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He received multiple nominations for Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902 to 1906, and nominations for Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902 and 1910, and his miss of the prize is a major Nobel prize controversy.