The text of this revised Norton Critical Edition of Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel is based on the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation. The editor has made revisions where appropriate; the annotations have also been revised and expanded. Three maps of Napoleon’s campaigns and battles in Russia are included, making the military aspects of the novel easier to follow.
"Backgrounds and Sources" includes the publication history of
War and Peace
, selections from Tolstoy’s letters and diaries as well as three drafts of his introduction to the novel that elucidate the its evolution, and an 1868 article by Tolstoy in which he reacts to his critics. "Criticism" includes twenty essays, seven of them new, that provide diverse perspectives on the novel by Nikolai Strakhov, V. I. Lenin, Henry James, Isaiah Berlin, D. S. Mirsky, Kathryn Feuer, Lydia Ginzburg, Richard Gustafson, Gary Saul Morson, and Caryl Emerson, among others. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.