Vintage Classics: War and Peace

From the best-selling, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, comes a brilliant, engaging, and eminently readable translation of Leo Tolstoy's master epic. War and Peace, nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read, centers broadly on Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the best-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves behind his family to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman, who intrigues both men.

As Tolstoy vividly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture, the novel progresses, and these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature. Pevear and Volokhonsky have brought us this classic novel in a translation remarkable for its fidelity to Tolstoy's style and cadence and for its energetic, accessible prose.

The characters in War and Peace, as Napoleon's army invades, are fighting for their inheritance, their families, and their spiritual fulfillment, while also facing the challenges of their era, their history, and their culture. Tolstoy's masterful storytelling and his ability to create complex, multidimensional characters have made this novel a beloved classic, and Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation has brought it to a new generation of readers in a way that is true to the original while also being highly readable and engaging.

The novel's broad scope, its richly drawn characters, and its themes of love, war, and the human condition have made it a touchstone of world literature, and Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation is a worthy addition to the legacy of this great work. Whether you are a long-time fan of War and Peace or are discovering it for the first time, this new translation is sure to captivate and inspire you.

product information: