Book Bearings
War and Peace
- 696 pages · about 12 hours
- First published 1869
- 647 editions
- Free to read
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1 About this book
War and Peace follows five aristocratic Russian families through the years of the Napoleonic Wars, from 1805 to the French invasion of Russia in 1812 and its aftermath. At its center are three people: Pierre Bezukhov, the awkward, questioning heir to a great fortune; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, proud and restless, who goes to war in search of glory; and Natasha Rostova, the lively daughter of a warm, improvident Moscow family. Their loves, marriages, losses and changes of heart are set against the campaigns of the war. Alongside the story Tolstoy sets out his own ideas about history and what moves it. The novel was published in full in 1869.
- Classics
- Historical fiction
- Russia (federation)
- Textual Criticism
- Campaigns
- Military campaigns
- Russia in fiction
- Social life and customs
2 What to expect
Tolstoy's vast novel of Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, moving between ballrooms, country estates and battlefields with a cast of hundreds. It is at once family saga, love story, war novel and argument about history, and its people change and grow over many years. The storytelling is clear and absorbing once the names are learned, and the chapters of historical argument are slower. Complete editions run well over a thousand pages, and abridgments are common.
Good for readers who want: a great historical novel, war and family life, and a sweeping, absorbing read.
3 Read it free, right here
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Read it on the Internet Archive4 About Leo Tolstoy
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
5 More by Leo Tolstoy
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