Step 1 : Introduction to the question "Which classic novel opens with the line "Well, Prince..."?"
...The line "Well, Prince..." is the famous opening line of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. The full sentence—"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes."—immediately sets the stage for the novel’s sweeping political and social themes. Spoken by Anna Pavlovna Scherer, a prominent St. Petersburg hostess, the line introduces both the global backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars and the peacetime idea of conversation at a high-society party. From the very start, Tolstoy signals that war and peace are deeply intertwined.