First published in 1865, &quot;War and Peace&quot; is a novel by Leo Tolstoy which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy&#39;s two major masterpieces (the other being &quot;Anna Karenina&quot;) as well as one of the world&#39;s greatest novels.<br /><br />&quot;War and Peace&quot; offered a new kind of fiction, with a great many characters caught up in a plot that covered nothing less than the grand subjects indicated by the title, combined with the equally large topics of youth, marriage, age, and death. Though it is often called a novel today, it broke so many conventions of the form that it was not considered a novel in its time. Indeed, Tolstoy himself considered &quot;Anna Karenina&quot; (written in 1878) to be his first attempt at a novel in the European sense.<br /><br /><br />&quot;War and Peace&quot;<i>&nbsp;</i>broadly focuses on Napoleon&rsquo;s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.<br />As Napoleon&rsquo;s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds&mdash;peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers&mdash;as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving&mdash;and human&mdash;figures in world literature.<br /><br /><b>&quot;War and Peace&quot; has been nominated as one of America&rsquo;s best-loved novels by PBS&rsquo;s&nbsp;<i>The Great American Read.</i></b>