Other editions of book War and Peace

[This is Part 2 of a 2-part Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.] [Library Edition Audiobook CD Part 1 has ISBN: 9780786160563 [Read by Frederick Davidson] Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once a historical war epic, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Noted for its mastery of realistic detail and psychological analysis, it follows the metamorphosis of five aristocratic families against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Individual stories interweave as each of Tolstoy's memorable characters seek fulfillment, fall in love, make mistakes, and become scarred by war in different ways. Out of this complex narrative emerges a profound examination of the individual's place in the historical process. -- Thomas Mann praised Tolstoy for his Homeric powers: ''To be played upon by the animal keenness of this eye, the sheer power of this creative attack, the entirely clear and true greatness . . . of this epic, is to find one's way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane.''

Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once an epic of the Napoleonic Wars, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Tolstoy’s genius is seen clearly in the multitude of fully realized and equally memorable characters that populate this massive chronicle. Out of this complex narrative emerges a profound examination of the individual’s place in the historical process, one that makes it clear why Thomas Mann praised Tolstoy for his Homeric powers and placed War and Peace in the same category as the Iliad: “To read him . . . is to find one’s way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane.”

War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in its entirety in 1869. Epic in scale, it is regarded as one of the central works of world literature. It is considered Tolstoy's finest literary achievement, along with his other major prose work, Anna Karenina (1873–1877). War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events surrounding the French invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version of the novel, then known as The Year 1805, were serialized in the magazine The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867. The novel was first published in its entirety in 1869. Newsweek in 2009 ranked it first in its list of the Top 100 Books. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 20 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. Tolstoy himself, somewhat enigmatically, said of War and Peace that it is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle". Large sections of the work, especially in the later chapters, are philosophical discussion rather than narrative. He went on to elaborate that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence hesitated to call War and Peace a novel. (Instead, Tolstoy regarded Anna Karenina as his first true novel.

[This is Part 1 of a 2-part Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.][Library Edition Audiobook CD Part 2 has ISBN: 9780786160570] [Read by Frederick Davidson] Often called the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace is at once a historical war epic, a philosophical study, and a celebration of the Russian spirit. Noted for its mastery of realistic detail and psychological analysis, it follows the metamorphosis of five aristocratic families against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. Individual stories interweave as each of Tolstoy's memorable characters seek fulfillment, fall in love, make mistakes, and become scarred by war in different ways. Out of this complex narrative emerges a profound examination of the individual's place in the historical process. -- Thomas Mann praised Tolstoy for his Homeric powers: ''To be played upon by the animal keenness of this eye, the sheer power of this creative attack, the entirely clear and true greatness . . . of this epic, is to find one's way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane.''