WAR AND PEACE: A Historical Novel

New York: William S. Gottsberger, 1886.

Tolstoy's epic novel of the Napleonic Wars, one of the greatest novels ever written.

(Item #1315) WAR AND PEACE: A Historical Novel. Count Leon Tolstoi, Tolstoy.

WAR AND PEACE: A Historical Novel

New York: William S. Gottsberger, 1886. First American edition. First complete edition in English (following the abridged London edition of the same year) with all title-pages dated 1886 and with the proper Gottsberger imprint on versos. Six small octavo volumes (pages 6 3/16 x 4 7/16 inches; 157 x 114 mm); complete with all blanks and ads. Translated from a French edition by Clara Bell.

Original dark brown cloth decoratively stamped in black and gilt and with titles in gilt. Original brown-coated endpapers, two volumes with hinges expertly repaired. An exceptionally lovely, bright set in Fine condition with only the slightest pushing to the spine ends.

The author’s epic novel of the Napoleonic Wars, which gives them a human face through the poignant impact they have on several interrelated characters. A story of love and tradition amidst a crumbling society and a radically changing world. A novel brimming with enlightenment and modern theories. Virginia Woolf wrote: “There remains the greatest of all novelists—for what else can we call the author of War and Peace? . . . Even in a translation we feel that we have been set on a mountain-top and had a telescope put into our hands. Everything is astonishingly clear and absolutely sharp.” Undoubtedly a masterpiece of world literature, and in our opinion, the greatest work from the Russian literary canon.
Fine (Item #1315)

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