War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It is regarded as a central work of world literature and one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements.

Tolstoy began writing War and Peace in 1863, the year that he finally married and settled down at his country estate. The first half of the book was written under the name "1805".

The first draft of the novel was completed in 1863. In 1865, the periodical Russkiy Vestnik (The Russian Messenger) published the first part of this draft under the title 1805 and published more the following year. Tolstoy was dissatisfied with this version, although he allowed several parts of it to be published with a different ending in 1867. He heavily rewrote the entire novel between 1866 and 1869. Tolstoy's wife, Sophia Tolstaya, copied as many as seven separate complete manuscripts before Tolstoy considered it again ready for publication. The version that was published in Russkiy Vestnik had a very different ending from the version eventually published under the title War and Peace in 1869. Russians who had read the serialized version were eager to buy the complete novel, and it sold out almost immediately. The novel was translated almost immediately after publication into many other languages.

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