IN
Count Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was born in central Russia. After serving in the Crimean War, he retired to his estate and devoted himself to writing, farming, and raising his large family. His novels and outspoken social polemics brought him world fame.
“In a novel as good and as spacious as Tolstoy’s all things are
possible. It must contain, as it does, the muddle and
unpredictability of life, its refusal to supply endings or neat
situations. And indeed this is where the greatness of the novel
will be found to lie. Of all authors Tolstoy is the one whose art
most contradicts his own views, and yet the one whose true
personality is most revealed in his art. And what is Anna’s 'true
personality'? It remains to the end not an enigma, but a factor and
a phenomenon that is infinitely variable, like life itself.”
–from the Introduction by John Bayley
"In a novel as good and as spacious as Tolstoy's all things are
possible. It must contain, as it does, the muddle and
unpredictability of life, its refusal to supply endings or neat
situations. And indeed this is where the greatness of the novel
will be found to lie. Of all authors Tolstoy is the one whose art
most contradicts his own views, and yet the one whose true
personality is most revealed in his art. And what is Anna's 'true
personality'? It remains to the end not an enigma, but a factor and
a phenomenon that is infinitely variable, like life itself."
-from the Introduction by John Bayley
Pevear and Volokhonsky, winners of the 1991 PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for their version of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, have produced the first new translation of Leo Tolstoy's classic Anna Karenina in 40 years. The result should make the book accessible to a new generation of readers. In an informative introduction, Pevear gives the reader a history of the work Tolstoy called his first true novel and which took him some four years to write. Pevear explains how Tolstoy took real events, incorporated them into his novel, and went through several versions before this tale of the married Anna and her love for Count Vronsky emerged in its final form in 1876. It was during the writing of the book that Tolstoy went through a religious crisis in his life, which is reflected in this novel. The translation is easily readable and succeeds in bringing Tolstoy's masterpiece to life once again. For all libraries. Ron Ratliff, Kansas State Univ., Manhattan Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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