1942 Rare Book bound by Bayntun-Riviere - War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
An exceptionally handsome 1942 edition of Tolstoy’s monumental War and Peace, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude and presented in a fine signed Bayntun-Riviere binding, complete with all six maps.
Author: Leo Tolstoy.
Title: War and Peace.
Publisher: London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd. / Oxford University Press, 1942.
Edition: 1942 edition, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, with an introduction by Aylmer Maude.
Language: English.
Pages: xxvii, 1352 pages.
Size: 8.5 x 5.5 inches.
Binding: Fine binding by Bayntun-Riviere of Bath in red half morocco over matching red cloth boards, with leather corners, five raised bands, gilt titles and decorative military emblems to the spine. Marbled endpapers. Upper edge gilt. Binder’s signature “Bayntun-Riviere Bath” to the front blank. An elegant and beautifully preserved binding. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Near fine content, clean and well preserved, with only occasional light spotting and minor signs of age. Includes Aylmer Maude’s introduction, notes to the opening chapters, principal characters arranged in family groups, dates of principal historical events, both epilogues, and Tolstoy’s concluding essay Some Words About War and Peace.
Illustrations: Complete with all six maps called for: The Campaign of 1805, Austerlitz, The Campaign of 1807, Borodino, Moscow — 1812, and the large colored map Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia 1812. The latter, originally used as an endpaper, has been carefully preserved and bound in at the rear, as shown.
Estimate: $600–800 USD.
The book:
First published in book form in Russia between 1868 and 1869, War and Peace remains one of the defining achievements of world literature. Tolstoy interweaves the lives of the Rostov, Bolkonsky and Bezukhov families with the Napoleonic campaigns, moving effortlessly between intimate domestic scenes, battlefield experience, political history and philosophical reflection. This substantial single-volume edition uses the celebrated translation of Louise and Aylmer Maude, personal acquaintances of Tolstoy whose English rendering became one of the most influential versions of the novel.
This copy is especially attractive for its fine Bayntun-Riviere binding. The vivid red morocco, raised spine bands, gilt martial emblems, marbled endpapers and gilt upper edge transform the large novel into an elegant library volume. Particularly desirable is the preservation of the complete suite of six maps, including the large map of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia, originally used as an endpaper and here retained separately at the rear.
The author:
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was one of the great Russian novelists and thinkers of the nineteenth century. Born into an aristocratic family at Yasnaya Polyana, he served in the Russian army before turning increasingly to literature. His experiences during the Crimean War helped shape the extraordinary realism with which he later depicted warfare, command, fear and chance in War and Peace.
Alongside Anna Karenina, War and Peace established Tolstoy as one of the central figures of the modern novel. His writing combines psychological insight with a profound interest in history, morality, family and the forces that shape human life, giving the work an enduring stature far beyond its original historical setting.