The verified answer to “Books and Authors question: With War and Peace as the reference work, which book–author pair is correctly matched?” is War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy, option C. The source-backed, question-specific record explains: War and Peace is correctly associated with Leo Tolstoy. The work’s first publication is conventionally dated to 1869, and its original language is Russian. These three details—title, author, and language—form the decisive bibliographical combination required here. Leo Tolstoy, a major Russian literary figure, is also associated with Anna Karenina; that companion title helps confirm the authorship independently rather than through guesswork. The distractor set (The Great Gatsby — John Milton; Paradise Lost — Gabriel García Márquez; One Hundred Years of Solitude — F. Scott Fitzgerald) must therefore be tested as complete statements: one true fragment cannot make an entire option correct. A candidate should first lock the title to its writer, then check the language, and finally use 1869 as a chronological cross-check. A common examination trap is to confuse an author’s nationality with the language of composition, or a translation date with first publication. Another is to treat a well-known adaptation or later edition as the original work. Revision takeaway: remember the compact chain “War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy — Russian — 1869,” and connect it with Anna Karenina for stronger recall. This evidence establishes the bibliographic relationship required in this Books and Authors item. A correct solution must preserve the exact title, author, publication context, language, award or comparison requested by the stem. Similar periods, genres or national traditions do not make two book–author pairs interchangeable. Option C gives War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy and satisfies the wording of the question.