War and Peace [Hardcover]

'Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in service of others' work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness'

`reveals Tolstoy in his majestic scope and precision to this reader for the first time...ringing with mastery and truth'

'If you've never read it, now is the moment. This translation will show that you don't read War and Peace, you live it' Margaret Reynolds, THE TIMES

War and Peace is one of the richest novels ever written. Tolstoy's enthralling epic combines history and fiction in his depiction of Russia's lengthy war with the French armies of Napoleon and its effects on the domestic lives of those caught up in the conflict. He creates some of the most vital and involving characters in literature as he follows the rise and fall of families in St Petersburg and Moscow who are linked by their personal and political relationships. His heroes are the thoughtful yet impulsive Pierre Bezukhov, his intelligentand ambitious friend, Prince Andrei, and the woman who becomes indispensable to both of them, the enchanting Natasha Rostova.

Stunningly translated with remarkable fidelity to the all-important tone of Tolstoy's original, and including an introduction, notes, a chapter summary and an index of historical figures, this edition of War and Peace is destined to become the definitive English translation for our time.

Packaged like the best most desirable literary fiction - the perfect Christmas gift. It Includes a translator's introduction, a chronology of Tolstoy's life and works, a list of characters, further reading, and four maps.
'This is the best translation so far of Tolstoy's masterpiece into English. It achieves the difficult feat of combining faithfulness to the original with smooth, idiomatic English. The result is a triumph of cultural mediation' – Robert Maguire, Professor of Russian, Columbia University, New York
'In Tolstoy’s work part of the translator’s difficulty lies in conveying not only the simplicity but the subtlety of the book’s scale and effect… Professor Briggs has rendered them both with a particular exactness and a vigorous precision not to be found, I think, in any previous translation' - John Bayley --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia on 9 September 1828. In 1852 he published his first work, the autobiographical Childhood. He served in the army during the Crimean War and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6) are based on his experiences. His two most popular masterpieces are War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1875-8). He died in 20 November 1910.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have been nominated for the PEN-Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize three times and have won it twice. They live in Paris