War and Peace (Russian: Война и мир, Pre-reform Russian: «Война и миръ») is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is considered one of the most celebrated works of fiction. It is regarded as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement, along with his other famous work Anna Karenina (1873–1877).
War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to the French invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version were serialized in the magazine The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867. The novel was first published in its entirety in 1869. Newsweek in 2009 ranked it top of its list of Top 100 Books.
Tolstoy himself, somewhat enigmatically, said of War and Peace that it was "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less an historical chronicle."
