Audiobook · read by volunteers
War and Peace, Book 01: 1805
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
Read by Rainer, Stewart Wills, Nomenphile, David Barnes, Richard Grove, Patricia Oakley, Chip, Kristin LeMoine, JemmaBlythe, Alex Foster · 28 chapters · 5 h 31
About the book
Saint Petersburg, July 1805. At a glittering reception, the guests talk about Napoleon, about war, and about who will be received at court. Among them are the awkward, kind-hearted Pierre Bezukhov, a nobleman’s illegitimate son who has just come home from abroad, and the brilliant, restless Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who is bored with society and eager for glory.
This first book of Tolstoy’s great novel introduces the families whose lives will be swept up by history: the warm and chaotic Rostovs, the proud Bolkonskys, the scheming Kuragins. Their love affairs, rivalries and inheritances unfold as Europe slides towards war with Napoleon.
Tolstoy moves effortlessly between the salon and the front, between intimate gestures and vast events. It is a book about how ordinary people live while the world changes around them. This section gives twenty-eight chapters and about five and a half hours, a very good entry into a novel that can seem intimidating. Start here, and you may find that you want to hear the rest.
Introduction
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) published War and Peace between 1865 and 1869, first in instalments in the Russian journal The Russian Messenger. It follows several aristocratic families through the years of the Napoleonic wars, from 1805 to 1812 and beyond, and sets their private fortunes against the invasion of Russia. It is widely counted among the great novels of world literature, and one of the longest.
The book is built in parts. The first book, titled 1805 in this recording, covers the opening phase: society in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, the scramble over a dying nobleman’s fortune, and the moment when Prince Andrei leaves for the army. The battles of that year, including the defeat at Austerlitz in December, come in the books that follow. Tolstoy also steps back at times to reflect on how history is made, a theme that returns again and again in the later parts.
This recording uses the English translation by Aylmer Maude (1858-1938) and Louise Maude (1855-1939), who had known Tolstoy personally and whose version was widely read in English. It is divided into twenty-eight chapters and lasts about five and a half hours. The reading is by LibriVox volunteers.
Since the novel is so long, many listeners find that audio is the easiest way in. The first book works well as a standalone sample: it introduces the characters, sets up the main relationships, and shows Tolstoy’s mix of social comedy and military realism. If it draws you in, the later books follow the same families through the years that decide their fates.
Public domain
Leo Tolstoy died in 1910: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text