War and Peace Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy said War and Peace is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle." It is regarded as a central work of world literature and one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements.

Tolstoy began writing War and Peace in 1863, the year that he finally married and settled down at his country estate. The first half of the book was written under the name "1805". The first draft of the novel was completed in 1863. In 1865, the periodical Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Messenger) published the first part of this draft under the title 1805 and published more the following year. Tolstoy was dissatisfied with this version, although he allowed several parts of it to be published with a different ending in 1867. He heavily rewrote the entire novel between 1866 and 1869. The novel was translated almost immediately after publication into many other languages.

The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg, at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer - the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. Many of the main characters are introduced as they enter the salon. Pierre (Pyotr Kirilovich) Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, who is dying after a series of strokes. Pierre is about to become embroiled in a struggle for his inheritance. Educated abroad at his father's expense following his mother's death, Pierre is kindhearted but socially awkward, and finds it difficult to integrate into Petersburg society. It is known to everyone at the soirée that Pierre is his father's favorite of all the old count’s illegitimate progeny….

- Excerpted from wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace)

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