WAR AND PEACE [WITH AN ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATION]

First edition with these illustrations, first printing. Two volumes. Together with a framed original drawing by Felix Topolsky from the book (vol II, p.235). Original red half leather with illustrated cloth-covered boards and titles in gilt to the spine, in slipcase. Top edges red. Illustrated throughout with black and white line drawings by Topolsky. Fine copies, the bindings square and clean, the contents clean and bright throughout and without stamps or inscriptions. Complete with the original slipcase which is lightly rubbed to the extremities and has a very short closed tear to the paper covering at the spine. The original drawing pictures Napoleon, and is on an irregularly shaped piece of paper (seemingly cut from a larger sheet of drawings) which is a little toned to the edges and is window-mounted behind glass.

Feliks Topolsky (1907-1989) was a Polish artist who spent much of his adult life in the UK. During the Second World War he was commissioned as an official war artist by the British and Polish governments as well as 'Picture Post' magazine, for whom he would make drawings on location. He continued to create similar journalistic drawings under commission, as well as for his independently published broadsheet 'Topolski's Chronicle' which ran from 1953 to 1982 and provided a visual record of world events. Some of these drawings would become the basis for large scale paintings, including a mural of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation which now hangs in Buckingham Palace. He carries this journalistic style into this edition of Tolstoy's classic, giving the impression that he was witness to the events within the pages, sketching as the action unfolds.