War and Peace

leo tolstoy anthony briggs orlando figes

Widely considered the greatest novel ever written in any language, War and Peace has as its backdrop Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and at its heart three of the most memorable characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, a quixotic young man in search of spiritual joy; Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, a cynical intellectual transformed by the suffering of war; and the bewitching and impulsive Natasha Rostov, daughter of a count. As they seek fulfillment, fall in love, make mistakes, and become scarred by battle in different ways, these characters and their stories interweave with those of a huge cast, from aristocrats to peasants, from soldiers to Napoleon himself.

In this first English translation in more than forty years, Anthony Briggs faithfully reveals Tolstoy’s art in stirring prose, clearing up ambiguities that have plagued many modern translations. This volume also includes an afterword by eminent historian Orlando Figes, a list of characters, descriptions of the three main battles, chapter summaries, and notes. Both epic and intimate, a compassionate portrait of humanity and an engrossing read, this is the War and Peace of choice for a whole new generation.

Genres classicsfictionhistorical fictionrussiarussian literatureliteraturewarnovelshistorical19th century

1412 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1,1869

Literary awards

audie award,

Places

russia, st. petersburg, moscow,

This edition

Format: 1412 pages, Hardcover
Published: January 19, 2006 by Viking Adult
ISBN: 9780670034697
ASIN: 067003469X
Language: English

Characters More characters

Pierre Bezukhov

Count (Graf) Pyotr "Pierre" Kirillovich Bezukhov (Russian: Пьер Безу́хов, Пётр Кири́ллович Безу́хов, or Pierre Bezuhov according to Rosemary Edmonds translation) is a central fictional character in Leo Tolstoys novel War and Peace. He is the f...
Natasha Rostova

Countess Natalya "Natasha" Ilyinichna Rostova (Russian: Наталья "Наташа" Ильинична Ростова, named Natasha Rostov in the Rosemary Edmonds version; born 1792, according to the book) is a central fictional character in Leo Tolstoys novel War and Peace....
Nikolai Rostov

Count Nikolai is the brother of Vera Rostova, Natasha Rostova and Petya Rostov. At the start of the novel, Nikolai is aged 20 and a university student. He gives up his studies in a zealous desire to serve his country as a Hussar in the fight against Napol...
Ilya Rostov

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Petya Rostov

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Helene Kuragina

Princess Yelena "Hélène" Vasilyevna Kuragina (Russian: Елена "Эле́н" Васи́льевна Кура́гина) is a fictional character in Leo Tolstoys novel War and Peace and its various cinematic adaptations. She is played by Anita Ekberg in the 1956 film, by Amber ...

About the author

leo tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.

His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.