This work is translated by Louise & Aylmer Maude. It includes an introduction and notes by Henry and Olga Claridge, University of Kent at Canterbury. "War and Peace" is a vast epic centred on Napoleon's war with Russia.

While it expresses Tolstoy's view that history is an inexorable process which man cannot influence, he peoples his great novel with a cast of over five hundred characters.

Three of these, the artless and delightful Natasha Rostov, the world-weary Prince Andrew Bolkonsky and the idealistic Pierre Bezukhov illustrate Tolstoy's philosophy.