War and Peace (1869) is a novel by Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Serialized between 1865 and 1867, it was published in book form in 1869 and has since been recognized as a masterpiece of world literature. Notable for its epic scale, War and Peace encompasses hundreds of characters, diligently following its five central families across fifteen years while featuring detailed imaginings of such historical figures as Napoleon Bonaparte. In Books I-V, he introduces the novels main characters while setting the stage for war between France and Russia. When conflict finally breaks out, friends and family members are torn apart, political alliances are shattered, and peace gives way to violence and despair. The novel begins with a soirée at the Saint Petersburg home of Anna Pavlovna Scherer. This scene not only introduces the central characters of the story, it gives a sense of the extensive French influence on Russian aristocratic society in 1805. Here, Pierre Bezukhov—the illegitimate son of a wealthy nobleman—and his friend Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky discuss their mutual dissatisfaction with life in Saint Petersburg. While Andrei goes to war in order to escape an unhappy marriage, Pierre becomes trapped in the bitter dispute surrounding his inheritance. As the years go by, those who remain in Moscow and Saint Petersburg must adjust to the realities of war, while those such as Andrei and Count Nikolai Ilyich Rostov experience firsthand the horrors of conflict. With its depiction of the Battle of Austerlitz, a stunning defeat for Russia and its Austrian allies, Tolstoy’s story brings history to life while reminding us that the past is always closer than we care to think. As ambitious as it is triumphant, Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece is an epic novel of history and family, a story of faith and the will to persevere in the face of unspeakable catastrophe. War and Peace is a work that transcends both history and description, not just for the scale of its narrative and setting, but for the scope of its philosophical interests. Since its publication, it has been praised as an essential work of literature by Ivan Turgenev, Gustave Flaubert, Thomas Mann, and Ernest Hemingway, and has been adapted for film, theater, and television countless times.

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