Audiobook · read by volunteers
War and Peace, Book 03: 1805
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910)
Read by Accent, Jessica AC Snyder, camelot2302, eva, Kirsten Ferreri, spiritualbeing · 19 chapters · 5 h 02
About the book
The year is 1805, and Europe is on the edge of war. In this third book of Tolstoy’s great novel, the lives of the Russian aristocracy and the movements of armies begin to meet. Young men go to the front with dreams of glory, families watch and worry, and the first great campaign against Napoleon tests everyone it touches. Tolstoy follows both the drawing rooms and the battlefield with the same attention to human detail, so that the large events never swallow the people who live through them. This recording uses the translation by Aylmer and Louise Maude. It is a long novel in many parts, and this book lets you step into the story at a crucial moment. Nineteen chapters, five hours, and a remarkable portrait of society on the brink.
Introduction
War and Peace was written by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) and published in the Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1869. It is an epic novel about Russian society during the Napoleonic era, and it is generally counted among the great works of world literature. Its scale is immense: hundreds of characters, several families and a sweep of historical events from private conversations to national crises.
This recording is Book Three, which carries the title 1805 and which belongs to the early part of the work. Within the whole novel it belongs to the opening movement, in which the private lives of several families meet the campaign of 1805. The English text is the translation by Aylmer Maude (1858-1938) and Louise Maude (1855-1939), which was published in the early twentieth century and has been read by many generations of English-speaking readers.
Anyone new to the novel should know that LibriVox has recorded it in separate books, each of which can be listened to in turn. You will meet many names, but Tolstoy has a gift for making each person distinct, and the story soon becomes easy to follow.
This book has nineteen chapters and lasts about five hours. It was read by LibriVox volunteers. It is a fine way into a long novel and a good reminder of why it has endured. Listeners who have not read the earlier books will still be able to follow, since Tolstoy introduces his characters with care, though a short summary of the novel’s opening may help. The chapters are of moderate length, which makes it comfortable to listen in a series of evenings and to let the many threads gather gradually.
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