Shorter, Not Necessarily Sweeter

Been putting off reading Tolstoy's War and Peace because of its bulk? Well, the enterprising folk at Harper Collins have a solution. They're set to release "a slimmed down version of the literary classic with a happier conclusion". Moreover, "in the new book, taken from one of Tolstoy's earlier drafts, two of the main characters, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky and Petya Rostov, who die in the original, survive."

What next, a simplified version of King Lear which ends with Lear and his daughters sitting down to a family dinner and then living happily ever after?