Our Notes & References
First edition of Tolstoy’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of world literature.
A very attractive set, almost spotless.
Described by Turgenev as “the epic, the history novel and the vast picture of the whole nation’s life”, War and Peace began as a serialised work called 1805 which first appeared in the magazine Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Messenger). Parts of the novel were published in 1867 but Tolstoy was unhappy with it and set about a substantial revision of the work, his wife Sophia copying seven complete drafts. The final version, published as War and Peace, differed markedly from the part-serialised 1805 and was, despite some critics’ difficulty in classifying the work, an instant success and recognised as marking a significant shift in what literary fiction could do.
Bibliography
Kilgour 1196; Lesman 2247.
Item number
2524







