War and Peace is a vast epic centred on Napoleon's war with Russia. While it expresses Tolstoy's view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great novel with a cast of over five hundred characters. Three of these, the artless and delightful Natasha Rostov, the world-weary Prince Andrew Bolkonsky and the idealistic Pierre Bezukhov illustrate Tolstoy's philosophy in this novel of unquestioned mastery. This translation is one which received Tolstoy's approval.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

This epic is considered one of the most celebrated works of fiction and is regarded as Tolstoy's finest literary work. The book details events leading to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic times on Tsarist society. Newsweek in 2009 ranked it top of its list of Top 100 Books.

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. Introduction and Notes by E.B. Greenwood, University of Kent. Anna Karenina is one of the most loved and memorable heroines of literature. Her overwhelming charm dominates a novel of unparalleled richness and density. Tolstoy considered this book to be his first real attempt at a novel form, and it addresses the very nature of society at all levels,- of destiny, death, human relationships and the irreconcilable contradictions of existence. It ends tragically, and there is much that evokes despair, yet set beside this is an abounding joy in life's many ephemeral pleasures, and a profusion of comic relief.

Harmony was not the leitmotif of the Tolstoys's marriage. In wedlock for forty-eight years, some of them happy, many of them turbulent, the couple had reached the nadir of mutual exasperation in 1910, the final year of Tolstoy's life. No biography could illustrate this more graphically than these diaries for that fateful year. In addition to the Countess's own diary and day book, salient extracts are also reproduced from not only from Leo Tolstoy's diary but his private diary (For Myself Alone) as well.

There is more. It seems that almost everyone in the household had a sense of history and was recording their own observations of the domestic disintegration. The extensive footnotes quote liberally from, among others, Valentin Bulgakov (Tolstoy's secretary), Alexander Goldenweiser (pianist and close friend of Tolstoy), Vladimir Chertkov (Tolstoy's leading disciple, executor of his will, and the most controversial person in the book - the Countess's bete noire) and the eldest son, Sergey Tolstoy.

The end is well-known: Tolstoy finally flees the family estate, Yasnaya Polyana, only to die shortly afterwards in the station-master's house at Astapovo.

'Never, never marry, my dear fellow That's my advice: never marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel an irrevocable mistake.' So says Prince Andrew to Pierre in "War and Peace," but it could be the epigraph for this book.

By all means see the film, "The Last Station," but read this book as well.

'If life could write, it would write like Tolstoy.' Isaac Babel Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirées alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed. The prodigious cast of characters, both great and small, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence. Yet Tolstoy's portrayal of marital relations and scenes of domesticity is as truthful and poignant as the grand themes that underlie them. In this revised and updated version of the definitive and highly acclaimed Maude translation, Tolstoy's genius and the power of his prose are made newly available to the contemporary reader. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

`To love him was not enough for me after the happiness I had felt in falling in love. I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.' Leo Tolstoy, known to the world for his famous novels, also created throughout his sixty-year career as a writer a significant body of works of shorter ficiton. These fictions, like his novels, tend toward a uniqueness in form, even as they explore a set of themes common in the longer works. The four novellas selected here stand closest to the novels, and represent Tolstoy at his creative best, exploring in a specific and focused way his characteristic themes: life understood as a journey of the discovery of identity and vocation, the meaning of one's life in the face of death, and the redemptive role of suffering and compassion. Family Happiness (1859) traces the psychology of failed married love yet is written against the tradition of the novel of romance, marriage and adultery. The Kreutzer Sonata (1889) recounts a husband's addictions, jealousy, sinister guilt and subsequent isolation, while The Cossacks (1863) focuses on the experiences of a young Russian on in the Caucusus whose quest for romantic love becomes one for the love of 'the whole of God's world'. Finally, the superbly crafted Hadji Murad (1905) juxtaposes the military and civilian worlds, and relates a tale of the human violation of the natural through a series of parallel episodes. Written over a period of almost fifty years, these works display Tolstoy's changing views on art and sexuality, women and marriage, nationalism and ethnicity, war and empire. All four novellas develop, each in its own unique way, the central Tolystoyan theme of love. This edition, which updates a classic translation, has explanatory notes and a substantial introduction based on the most recent scholarship in the field. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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"Sevastopol Sketches (Sebastopol Sketches)" is a collection of three works of historical fiction in which Tolstoy draws upon his real life experiences during the Siege of Sevastopol. The titular location draws its name from that of a city in Crimea and takes place during the Crimean war. The three tales in this collection are respectively titled "Sevastopol in December," "Sevastopol in May," and "Sevastopol in August." In the December tale Tolstoy introduces us to Sevastopol by giving the reader a tour and introducing us to the settings, mannerisms, and background that would relevant in the following tales. In the May tale Tolstoy examines the senselessness of war, musings that would lay the foundation for his much larger work and magnum opus "War and Peace." In the third and final tale the fall of the town is detailed. Published in 1855 "Sevastopol" was written near the beginning of the author's literary career. It is a book in which we begin to see the writer exhibit a quality of prose that would one day establish him as the greatest of all writers in the Russian and any other language.

'It is impossible to explain why Yevgeny chose Liza Annenskaya, as it is always impossible to explain why a man chooses this and not that woman.' This collection of eleven stories spans virtually the whole of Tolstoy's creative life. While each is unique in form, as a group they are representative of his style, and touch on the central themes that surface in War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Stories as different as 'The Snowstorm', 'Lucerne', 'The Diary of a Madman', and 'The Devil' are grounded in autobiographical experience. They deal with journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious questioning that characterizes Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy. 'Strider' and 'Father Sergy', as well as reflecting Tolstoy's own experiences, also reveal profound psychological insights. These stories range over much of the Russian world of the nineteenth century, from the nobility to the peasantry, the military to the clergy, from merchants and cobblers to a horse and a tree. Together they present a fascinating picture of Tolstoy's skill and artistry. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.