War and Peace written by Leo Tolstoy performed by Leo McKern, Simon Russell Beale, Emily Mortimer and Radio 4 Full Cast Drama Team on Audio CD (Abridged)

A thirty-five strong cast including Leo McKern as Kutuzov, Simon Russell Beale as Pierre Bezuhov, Emily Mortimer as Natasha Rostov and Gerard Murphy as Andrei Bolkonsky, bring all the passion and turbulence of Tolstoy's epic masterpiece to the airwaves in this unique BBC Radio 4 dramatisation.

'Nine hours of blood-and-thunder period drama on a single disc has to be the best bargain around' - "The Guardian". 'Excellent special effects and a haunting theme tune make it compulsive listening' - "Independent".

One of the greatest novels of all time, War and Peace explores historical, social, ethical and religious issues on a scale never before attempted in fiction, and reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society during the 19th Century.

Including the acting talent of Emily Mortimer, Jonathan Firth & Nicola Pagett, this riveting, wide-ranging drama follows the fortunes of four Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War.

Told in flashback over ten episodes, it moves from fashionable society soirées in St Petersburg and Moscow to the battlefields of Austerlitz and Borodino, as protagonists Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai describe to their children the events that shaped their lives and those of every Russian who lived through this turbulent time.