Novels & Major Novellas
Book details
- Title
- Novels & Major Novellas
- Author
- Anna Pavlovna Scherer
- Publication year listed
- 1869
- Format
- Public domain eBook
- Reading access
- Free online reader; no registration required
- Source record
- View on Archive.org
About this book
Novels & Major Novellas
Author: Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Leo Tolstoy)
Year: 1869
Cover taken from Google Images. The Novel and the Criticism are separated. Summary BOOK I July 1805, Saint Petersburg : at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer – the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters are introduced as they enter the salon. Pierre (Pyotr Kirilovich) Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count , who is dying after a series of strokes. Pierre is about to become embroiled in a struggle for his inheritance. Educated abroad at his father's expense following his mother's death, Pierre is kind-hearted but socially awkward, and finds it difficult to integrate into Petersburg society. It is known to everyone at the soirée that Pierre is his father's favourite of all the old count’s illegitimate progeny. Also attending the soirée is Pierre's friend, Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, husband of Lise, a charming society favourite. He is disillusioned with Petersburg society and with married life, feeling that his wife is empty and superficial, and decides to escape to become aide-de-camp to Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon . The plot moves to Moscow , Russia's