'There remains the greatest of all novelists-for what else can we call the author of War And Peace? [Tolstoy's] senses, his intellect, are acute, powerful, and well nourished...Nothing seems to escape him. Nothing glances off him unrecorded...Every twig, every feather sticks to his magnet. He notices the blue or red of a child's frock; the way a horse shifts its tail; the sound of a cough; the action of a man trying to put his hands into pockets that...

A detailed account of the events leading up to a celebrated battle of the nineteenth century, the battle itself, and results of Napoleon's military failure.

A history of Napoleon's invasion of Russia describes the events that prompted the invasion and recounts how such factors as the harsh climate and Russian patriotism eventually set the stage for Napoleon's downfall.