
War And Peace
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Narrator: Zach Barrett
Unabridged: 67 hr 34 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: NTMC
Published: 10/21/2024
Categories: Fiction, Classic, Anthologies
Synopsis
The novel chronicles the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version, titled The Year 1805, were serialized in The Russian Messenger from 1865 to 1867 before the novel was published in its entirety in 1869.
Tolstoy said that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence hesitated to classify War and Peace, saying it is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle". Large sections, especially the later chapters, are philosophical discussions rather than narrative. He regarded Anna Karenina as his first true novel.
Before he can marry his fiancée Mercédès, Edmond Dantès, a French nineteen-year-old first mate of the Pharaon, is falsely accused of treason, arrested, and imprisoned without trial in the Château d'If, a grim island fortress off Marseille. A fellow prisoner, Abbé Faria, correctly deduces that romantic rival Fernand Mondego, envious crewmate Danglars, and double-dealing magistrate De Villefort are responsible. Over the course of their long imprisonment, Faria educates Dantès and tells him of a cache of treasure he found. After Faria dies, Dantès escapes and finds the treasure. As the powerful and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo, he enters the fashionable Parisian world of the 1830s to avenge himself.