Having spent nearly twenty-five years reading and researching Tolstoy, I gratefully acknowledge the vast body of research about the writer that I have drawn on in the writing of this as well as my previous book, Understanding Tolstoy. For readers wanting to delve further into War and Peace, Tolstoy’s life, and his art, below is a list of some of the books in English I have found particularly useful and hope you enjoy, too.
I am often asked about the best film adaptations of War and Peace. While there is much to recommend the BBC’s 1972 production, starring Anthony Hopkins as Pierre, I would say that the single greatest adaptation to date is the 1967 Soviet film directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. Scrupulously faithful to the content and spirit of the original novel, this eight-hour epic is a masterpiece of filmmaking in its own right. It is available in Russian with English subtitles. And, because we can never have enough of a good thing, BBC One has announced that in 2015 it will be releasing a new adaptation of War and Peace, a six-part TV series written by Andrew Davies.
I also recommend The Last Station, an Academy Award–nominated movie starring Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren about the last year of Tolstoy’s life. Released in 2009, this movie is based on Jay Parini’s excellent novel of the same name.
As for biographies of Tolstoy, the three best in English are:
Bartlett, Rosamund. Tolstoy: A Russian Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
Simmons, Ernest J. Leo Tolstoy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1946.
Wilson, A. N. Tolstoy. New York: Norton, 1988.
Other books I recommend:
Bayley, John. Tolstoy and the Novel. London: Chatto & Windus, 1966.
An informative, stylishly written work of Tolstoy criticism that situates the writer’s novels in both their Russian and European literary context.
Berlin, Isaiah. The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013. [Original editions: The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1953; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953 and 1986.]
A classic of both Tolstoy scholarship and intellectual history, this erudite essay analyzing the writer’s theory of history is both thought-provoking and a joy to read.
Christian, R. F. Tolstoy: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
A solid, systematic, and useful introduction to Tolstoy’s major fiction that focuses on sources and influences, as well as the literary techniques of Tolstoy’s magisterial prose.
Eikhenbaum, Boris. Tolstoi in the Sixties. Trans. Duffield White. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1982.
A classic of Tolstoy scholarship that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know (and then some) about the social, cultural, and intellectual context of the 1860s, during which Tolstoy wrote War and Peace.
Feuer, Kathryn B. Tolstoy and the Genesis of War and Peace. Ed. Robin Feuer Miller and Donna Tussing Orwin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.
An engagingly written book by a respected Tolstoy scholar and novelist, tracing the process by which War and Peace grew from a sociopolitical novel with overt ideological intentions into an artistic masterpiece that transcends ideology altogether.
Gustafson, Richard. Leo Tolstoy: Resident and Stranger: A Study in Fiction and Theology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
An important and serious book by a prominent Tolstoy scholar that illuminates the ways in which all of Tolstoy’s works, both fictional and philosophical, are an expression of the writer’s lifelong religious searchings.
Kaufman, Andrew. Understanding Tolstoy. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2011.
A broad and accessible analysis of Tolstoy’s major novels and novellas in the context of his life and times that speaks to the ways in which Tolstoy, despite living in a manner far removed from the experiences of most modern-day Americans, is still applicable and contemporary.
Lieven, Dominic. Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace. New York: Viking, 2010.
The go-to resource for those readers wanting a fuller discussion of the power politics and military strategies behind the events described in War and Peace.
Nickell, William. The Death of Tolstoy: Russia on the Eve, Astapovo Station, 1910. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010.
A detailed account of Tolstoy’s final flight from Yasnaya Polyana and his eventual death in the Astapovo train station, emphasizing how those events became a public spectacle and celebrity media event unlike any other the world had seen.
Orwin, Donna Tussing, ed. Anniversary Essays on Tolstoy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
A collection of original essays by leading scholars containing some of the latest thinking about Tolstoy in areas ranging from the writer’s attitudes toward music and death to the way in which he was presented during the revolutionary period in Russia.
Popoff, Alexandra. Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography. New York: Free Press, 2010.
The only biography of Tolstoy’s wife available in English, Popoff’s book provides fascinating insight into the troubled Tolstoy marriage, as well as a deeper appreciation of the heroism and humanity of the woman without whom War and Peace would never have been written.
Riasanovsky Nicholas V., and Mark D. Steinberg. A History of Russia. 8th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
The best single-volume introduction in English to Russian history, spanning ancient Russia through the postcommunist present era.
Steiner, George. Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in the Old Criticism. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996.
This wide-ranging comparative study of two giants of nineteenth-century Russian literature is erudite, accessible, and passionate, arising as it does out of Steiner’s self-proclaimed “debt of love” for the writers he discusses.
Tolstoy, Sofia. The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy. Trans. Cathy Porter. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009.
The best book available in English about the Tolstoy marriage, as seen from the point of view of Tolstoy’s wife.
Tolstoy, Leo. Correspondence. 2 vols. Selected, edited, and translated by R. F. Christian. New York: Scribner, 1978.
———. Diaries. Edited and translated by R. F. Christian. New York: Scribner, 1985.
The best compilation in English of Tolstoy’s letters and diaries, which make for fascinating reading in themselves.