War and Peace. by TOLSTOY, Leo - [1889]

London: Walter Scott,, [1889]. From the Russian by Nathan Haskell Dole. Authorised translation. In four volumes. 4 volumes, octavo. Original blue cloth, spines and front covers lettered and decorated in gilt. Some marking to cloth and light rubbing to extremities, staining to terminal advertisements of vol. I, covers of vol. II bowed, vol. IV water-stained. A good set. First translation into English from the original Russian, UK issue, omitting the preface to the US edition but retaining Dole's editorial footnotes. This translation was the work of American editor and translator Nathan Haskell Dole (1852-1935), issued in the same year in the US and UK, with the UK issue published in four volumes and omitting the translator's preface (Walter Scott reissued the work in two volumes in 1897). Two versions of War and Peace in English had been issued prior to Dole's version, both in 1886, but neither was translated directly from the Russian, using instead an intermediary French translation.