'Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy' Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

"My favourite book of 2007 is this new translation of War and Peace... I'm relishing the incomparable mix of vivid description, penetrating social comment and philosophy. Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in the service of others' work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness" -- Sally Vickers Independent "I'm absolutely blown away by this translation. The main thing about reading Volokhonsky and Pevear is that I feel I'm reading a book for the first time...it's a joy to read...There were moments in the book that hadn't quite established themselves until this [translation]...The sense of actually being in the skin of these people is phenomenally, brilliantly rendered by this new translation" -- Simon Schama "There remains the greatest of all novelists-for what else can we call the author of War and Peace" -- Virginia Woolf "To read him ... is to find one's way home ... to everything within us that is fundamental and sane" -- Thomas Mann "Tolstoy is a magnificent writer. he is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical!" -- James Joyce

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia on 9 September 1828. In 1852 he published his first work, the autobiographical Childhood. He served in the army during the Crimean War and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6) are based on his experiences. His two most popular masterpieces are War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1875-8). He died in 20 November 1910. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have been nominated for the PEN-Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize three times and have won it twice. They live in Paris