War and Peace

Overview

Set in the years leading up to and culminating in Napoleon's disastrous Russian invasion, this novel focuses upon an entire society torn by conflict and change. Here is humanity in all its innocence and corruption, its wisdom and folly.

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Author Information

Bio of Leo Tolstoy

Count Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia. Orphaned at nine, he was brought up by an elderly aunt and educated by French tutors until he matriculated at Kazan University in 1844. In 1847, he gave up his studies and, after several aimless years, volunteered for military duty in the army, serving as a junior officer in the Crimean War before retiring in 1857. In 1862, Tolstoy married Sophie Behrs, a marriage that was to become, for him, bitterly unhappy. His diary, started in 1847, was used for self-study and self-criticism; it served as the source from which he drew much of the material that appeared not only in his great novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), but also in his shorter works. Seeking religious justification for his life, Tolstoy evolved a new Christianity based upon his own interpretation of the Gospels. Yasnaya Polyana became a mecca for his many converts At the age of eighty-two, while away from home, the writer suffered a break down in his health in Astapovo, Riazan, and he died there on November 20, 1910.

Bio of Pat Conroy

The novelist Pat Conroy's life and personal experience are so inextricably bound up with his writing that, at first glance, it might seem that he is merely retelling the story of his life, again and again. The truth is, as usual, far more complicated and interesting. Significant elements and characters in his novels are obviously drawn from his life, a choice that apparently has created tremendous tension in his family. But these facts are merely points of departure for the author, who has a gift that is perhaps the most desirable and elusive of all for any novelist -- the ability to spin an unforgettable story. Conroy was born in 1945 in Atlanta, the eldest of seven children and the son of Col. Donald Conroy, a man not unlike the hero of "The Great Santini." He attended The Citadel, the South Carolina military academy that inspired the setting for The Lords of Discipline, and briefly taught school on an island off the South Carolina coast, an experience recounted in The Water Is Wide. The fallout from his life with his family seems to have inspired Conroy to create deeply compelling stories of vivid characters searching for love and fulfillment. These tales are invariably rooted in the infernal complexities and often dark realities of Southern tradition, notably in The Lords of Discipline and The Prince of Tides. The death of his mother -- a crafty Southern woman who chose to be called Peggy, after the author of "Gone With the Wind" -- led him to write his most recent novel "Beach Music." Though Conroy's books have created publicized rifts within his own family, they stand on their own with the public and most critics, having been embraced by a faithful and ever-growing readership and inspiring popular film adaptations. "Misfortune," Garry Abrams wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "has been good to novelist Pat Conroy."

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Additional Info

Imprint

Signet Classics

Filesize

5.80 MB

Number of Pages

1456

eBook ISBN

9781429583008