Translated by Lousie and Aylmer Maude
With an introduction and notes by Henry and Olga Claridge, University of Kent at Canterbury.
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 east 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 in the one which received Tolstoy's approval.