War and Peace

Six Years of Obsession: Tolstoy spent six years writing War and Peace, from 1863 to 1869, and during that time he rewrote the entire manuscript by hand at least eight times. Individual scenes were rewritten up to 26 times! Can you imagine the dedication? His wife Sophia hand-copied these drafts at least seven times while giving birth to four of their 13 children.

A Year for the Opening: It took Tolstoy an entire year just to write the introduction that satisfied him. That's right, 12 months to nail the opening scene! He saw his original title "The Year 1805" as merely a placeholder while he wrestled with how to begin this epic tale.

559 Characters Parade Through: The novel introduces 559 characters from beginning to end, with approximately 200 of them being real historical figures like Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I. You'll need a scorecard to keep track of everyone from princes to peasants!

Not Actually the Longest: Despite its reputation, War and Peace isn't even close to being the world's longest novel. At around 587,000 words in English translation, it's dwarfed by Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (nearly 1.9 million words) and even Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (655,000 words).

Two Percent French: About two percent of the novel is written in French, reflecting the historical reality that Russian aristocrats spoke French as their everyday language. One character, Julie Karagina, is so unfamiliar with Russian that she has to take Russian lessons in her own country!

Tolstoy Hated His Masterpiece: By 1870, just a year after finishing, Tolstoy wrote to a friend that he was glad he'd never write anything as "ridiculously verbose" as War and Peace again. In 1908, he dismissed it in his diary as one of the "trifles" people mistakenly thought important.

Family Secrets Hidden in Plain Sight: The Bolkonsky family name is a thinly disguised version of Tolstoy's mother's family name, Volkonsky. His sister-in-law Tanya inspired Natasha, and his father Nikolay (a real hero of the 1812 war) inspired the character Nikolay Rostov, who served in the same Pavlograd regiment mentioned in the novel.

Spelling Reform Shrank It: When Russian spelling was reformed in 1918 and the letter ъ was removed, the novel became about 11 pages shorter overnight. Imagine losing 11 pages just by changing the alphabet!

It's Not Even a Novel: Tolstoy himself insisted War and Peace wasn't a novel at all. He called it "what the author wanted to and could express in the form in which it was expressed" and referred to it as an "epic in prose." He rejected European literary conventions entirely.

Started as Something Else Entirely: Tolstoy originally planned a trilogy about the Decembrist uprising of 1825, with the first book covering the Napoleonic Wars as backstory. But he became so captivated by that earlier period that he abandoned the Decembrists entirely and gave us War and Peace instead.

The Battle That Never Ends: One battle sequence in the novel runs for more than 20 chapters! Tolstoy's obsessive research included visiting actual battlefields like Borodino, interviewing veterans, and reading every book about the Napoleonic Wars he could find in Russian and French.

A Censored Wedding Night: At his wife Sophia's insistence, Tolstoy removed an explicit scene describing Pierre Bezukhov's wedding night with Hélène. Sophia convinced him the church censors would never allow it. One wonders what scandalous details Tolstoy originally penned!