War and Peace (Annotated with Biography and Critical Essay)

War and Peace begins with a scene at a party in St. Petersburg in 1805. It is the Napoleonic era – the French general has conquered much of Western Europe and Russia is nervous. Russia is allied with the Austrian Empire which is resisting Napoleon’s forces along its borders.

At the party the reader is introduced to the main characters including Pierre Bezukhov and Andrew Bolkonski and members of two families: Vasili, Anatole, and Helene Kuragin and Natasha, Sonya, and Nicholas Rostov.

The plot is driven by the actions of the families – Andrew and Pierre join the Russian army at the Austrian Front, Nicholas almost gambles his family’s fortune away, and when Pierre returns home, he almost kills his wife’s lover. Andrew, missing in action on the Austrian Front, eventually returns home to find his wife has just died in childbirth.

This annotated edition includes a biography and critical essay.