The translation is fresh and immediate, but with all the elegance and power of the original. In particular, her translations of the descriptive passages are miniature masterpieces. Rosamund Bartlett's achievement is magnificent. Rosamund Bartlett's introduction, a tour d'horizon of Tolstoy's life and work, is also excellent.

Wilson, Books of the Year, Times Literary Supplement)Ī classically elegant translation. It is also a very beautifully produced book. Bartlett also offers a superb introduction - best thing ever written about the novel - and helpful notes. Rosamund Bartlett's translation is much the best English translation which has ever appeared. ( Sara Wheeler, Book of the Year 2014, Observer) Wilson, TLS)Īny excuse to reread Anna Karenina, and I enjoyed Rosamund Bartlett's new translation, published in a handsome hardcover edition by Oxford University Press. much the best English translation which has ever appeared. ( Carol Apollonio, The Times Literary Supplement) Rosamund Bartlett's version draws on her acclaimed work as a prolific writer, translator and scholar of modern Russian literature and culture. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. Like her acclaimed biography of Tolstoy, it is vivid, nuanced, and compelling. Rosamund Bartlett's translation conveys Tolstoy's precision of meaning and emotional accuracy in an English version that is highly readable and stylistically faithful. It creates an intricate labyrinth of connections that is profoundly satisfying, and deeply moving. The novel takes us from high society St Petersburg to the threshing fields on Levin's estate, with unforgettable scenes at a Moscow ballroom, the skating rink, a race course, a railway station.

One of the greatest novels ever written, Anna Karenina combines penetrating psychological insight with an encyclopedic depiction of Russian life in the 1870s. The love affair of Anna and Vronsky is played out alongside the developing romance of Kitty and Levin, and in the character of Levin, closely based on Tolstoy himself, the search for happiness takes on a deeper philosophical significance. It is a portrait of a beautiful and intelligent woman whose passionate love for a handsome officer sweeps aside all other ties - to her marriage and to the network of relationships and moral values that bind the society around her. it means too much to me, far more than you can understand.Īt its simplest, Anna Karenina is a love story.

Anna karenina paperback