War and Peace

Volume six, Moscow

The sixth and final volume of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace was issued in Moscow in December 1869, completing the first separate full edition of the work.

A Moscow newspaper advertisement dated 12 December announced that the newly printed sixth volume had just gone on sale, and offered the complete six-volume set alongside it. The evidence consulted does not establish a single formal publication day.

Not one book, and not all at once

The edition had appeared volume by volume: the first three were available by late 1867 despite title pages dated 1868, volume IV came in March 1868, volume V in March 1869, and volume VI in December.

That is why bibliographies date the edition either 1867–1869 or 1868–1869. The Moscow printer Ris produced it, and the volumes were supplied in paper wrappers, leaving purchasers to have them bound.

Six volumes, not four

The familiar four-volume organisation belongs to later publishing history; Tolstoy reorganised the text for the 1873 edition. What was completed in December 1869 was a work in six volumes.

The first four volumes had already sold well enough to require another edition, and critical argument continued around the now-complete text.

Its reach abroad came much later: the first French translation appeared in 1879, and the first complete English translation in 1886.