- Published: 26 February 2009
- ISBN: 9780141959801
- Imprint: Penguin eBooks
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 1
War And Peace
The acclaimed translation of Tolstoy's great novel, now in ebook
At a glittering society party in St Petersburg in 1805, conversations are dominated by the prospect of war. Terror swiftly engulfs the country as Napoleon's army marches on Russia, and the lives of three young people are changed forever. The stories of quixotic Pierre, cynical Andrey and impetuous Natasha interweave with a huge cast, from aristocrats and peasants, to soldiers and Napoleon himself. In War and Peace (1868-9), Tolstoy entwines grand themes - conflict and love, birth and death, free will and fate - with unforgettable scenes of nineteenth-century Russia, to create a magnificent epic of human life in all its imperfection and grandeur.
- Published: 26 February 2009
- ISBN: 9780141959801
- Imprint: Penguin eBooks
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 1
Other books in the series
About the author
Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia in 1828. He studied Oriental languages and law (although failed to earn a degree in the latter) at the University of Kazan, and after a dissolute youth eventually joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus in 1851. He took part in the Crimean War, and the Sebastopol Sketches that emerged from it established his reputation. After living for some time in St Petersburg and abroad, he married Sophie Behrs in 1862 and they had thirteen children. The happiness this brought him gave him the creative impulse for his two greatest novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877). Later in life his views became increasingly radical as he gave up his possessions to live a simple peasant life. After a quarrel with his wife he fled home secretly one night to seek refuge in a monastery. He became ill during this dramatic flight and died at the small railway station of Astapovo in 1910.
Praise for War And Peace
This is, at last, a translation of War and Peace without the dreadful misunderstandings and "improvements" that plague all other translations of the novel into English. Pevear and Volokhonsky's supple and compelling translation is the closest that an English reader without Russian can get to Tolstoy's masterwork. This is a great achievement. It is hard to imagine how this translation could be superseded."
Vladimir E. Alexandrov, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures,
It is simply the greatest novel ever written. All human life is in it. If I were told there was time to read only a single book, this would be it
Andrew Marr
Reveals Tolstoy in his majestic scope and precision to this reader for the first time, unencumbered by the pidgin archaisms of previous translations, ringing with mastery and truth
Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year
There is a good argument to say that any decent library must make room for War and Peace
Independent on Sunday
War and Peace... is gleefully experimental... Tolstoy is the greatest miniaturist in the history of the novel. He is economical... [An] outlandish, wonderful novel
Adam Thirwell, Guardian
The greatest of all novels. Read it again, to test and savour the infallible truth of Tolstoy’s understanding of every stage and aspect of human life
Alan Hollinghurst, New York Times
To read him . . . is to find one's way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane
Thomas Mann
In War And Peace, richly observed human life - its catastrophes and passions, its thrills and tedium - mark out Tolstoy as a fox, who knows all about the dizzying diversity of existence
Observer
Wonderfully readable
Wendy Cope, The Week
Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in service of others' work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness.
The Independent
My favourite book of 2007 is this new translation of War and Peace... I'm relishing the incomparable mix of vivid description, penetrating social comment and philosophy. Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in the service of others' work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness
Sally Vickers, Independent
I'm absolutely blown away by this translation. The main thing about reading Volokhonsky and Pevear is that I feel I'm reading a book for the first time...it's a joy to read...There were moments in the book that hadn't quite established themselves until this [translation]...The sense of actually being in the skin of these people is phenomenally, brilliantly rendered by this new translation
Simon Schama
There remains the greatest of all novelists-for what else can we call the author of War and Peace
Virginia Woolf
A rollicking historical novel
Vladimir Nabokov
First-rate! What an artist and what a psychologist
Gustave Flaubert
A masterpiece ... this new translation is excellent
Antony Beevor
War and Peace is like no other novel ... Tolstoy writes of both war and peace more marvellously than anyone else has done
John Bayley, The Sunday Times