Free shipping on orders over $99
War and Peace

War and Peace

(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Leo Tolstoy
Paperback
Publication Date: 28/11/2006

Share This Book:

  $47.90

Set against the sweeping panoply of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, "War and Peace" presented here in the first new English translation in forty years is often considered the greatest novel ever written. At its center are Pierre Bezukhov, searching for meaning in his life; cynical Prince Andrei, ennobled by wartime suffering; and Natasha Rostov, whose impulsiveness threatens to destroy her happiness. As Tolstoy follows the changing fortunes of his characters, he crafts a view of humanity that is both epic and intimate and that continues to define fiction at its most resplendent.

This edition includes an introduction, note on the translation, cast of characters, maps, notes on the major battles depicted, and chapter summaries.

"The best translation so far of Tolstoy's masterpiece into English." - Robert A. Maguire, professor emeritus of Russian studies, Columbia University

"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. . . . Briggs has rendered both with a particular exactness and a vigorous precision not to be found, I think, in any previous translation." -John Bayley, author of Elegy for Iris

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

ISBN:
9780143039990
9780143039990
Category:
Historical Fiction
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
28-11-2006
Language:
English
Publisher:
Penguin Publishing Group
Country of origin:
United States
Dimensions (mm):
213.36x143.51x62.23mm
Weight:
1.52kg
Leo Tolstoy

Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world's greatest novelists.

Tolstoy is best known for his two longest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which are commonly regarded as among the finest novels ever written. War and Peace in particular seems virtually to define this form for many readers and critics. Among Tolstoy's shorter works, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is usually classed among the best examples of the novella. Especially during his last three decades Tolstoy also achieved world renown as a moral and religious teacher. His doctrine of nonresistance to evil had an important influence on Gandhi. Although Tolstoy's religious ideas no longer command the respect they once did, interest in his life and personality has, if anything, increased over the years.

Most readers will agree with the assessment of the 19th-century British poet and critic Matthew Arnold that a novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life; the 20th-century Russian author Isaak Babel commented that, if the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy. Critics of diverse schools have agreed that somehow Tolstoy's works seem to elude all artifice. Most have stressed his ability to observe the smallest changes of consciousness and to record the slightest movements of the body. What another novelist would describe as a single act of consciousness, Tolstoy convincingly breaks down into a series of infinitesimally small steps. According to the English writer Virginia Woolf, who took for granted that Tolstoy was “the greatest of all novelists,” these observational powers elicited a kind of fear in readers, who “wish to escape from the gaze which Tolstoy fixes on us.”

Those who visited Tolstoy as an old man also reported feelings of great discomfort when he appeared to understand their unspoken thoughts. It was commonplace to describe him as godlike in his powers and titanic in his struggles to escape the limitations of the human condition. Some viewed Tolstoy as the embodiment of nature and pure vitality, others saw him as the incarnation of the world's conscience, but for almost all who knew him or read his works, he was not just one of the greatest writers who ever lived but a living symbol of the search for life's meaning.

This title is in stock with our overseas supplier and should be sent from our Sydney warehouse within 3 - 4 weeks of you placing an order.    

Once received into our warehouse we will despatch it to you with a Shipping Notification which includes online tracking.

Please check the estimated delivery times below for your region, for after your order is despatched from our warehouse:

ACT Metro  2 working days

NSW Metro  2 working days

NSW Rural  2 - 3 working days

NSW Remote  2 - 5 working days

NT Metro  3 - 6 working days

NT Remote  4 - 10 working days

QLD Metro  2 - 4 working days

QLD Rural  2 - 5 working days

QLD Remote  2 - 7 working days

SA Metro  2 - 5 working days

SA Rural  3 - 6 working days

SA Remote  3 - 7 working days

TAS Metro  3 - 6 working days

TAS Rural  3 - 6 working days

VIC Metro  2 - 3 working days

VIC Rural  2 - 4 working days

VIC Remote  2 - 5 working days

WA Metro  3 - 6 working days

WA Rural  4 - 8 working days

WA Remote  4 - 12 working days

Reviews

Be the first to review War and Peace.