Author Description

WAR AND PEACE is the epic of Napoleon's war upon Russia. How it washed like a tidal wave over all the individual characters of the story. The battle scenes, cycloramic in scale, with cavalry charges, slaughter and heroism, the burning of Moscow, the retreat of the French army through the pitiless snows - all are told in a manner never equalled before or since. Tolstoy has penetrated into the souls of his characters as though they were clear glass. The text is that of the revised edition, first published in the World's Classics in 1933, of the famous annotated translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude, based on Tolstoy's own final revision, which took him seven years to complete, and is now read through numerous translations all over the world.