Anna Karenina

Tolstoy produced many drafts of "Anna Karenina". Crafting and recrafting each sentence with careful intent, his use of language was anything but casual. His project, translator Marian Schwartz observes, "was to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions". In her magnificent new translation, Schwartz embraces Tolstoy's unusual style – the first English language translator ever to do so. Previous translations have departed from Tolstoy's original, "correcting" supposed mistakes and infelicities. But Schwartz uses repetition where Tolstoy does, wields a cliche when he does, and strips down descriptive passages as he does, recreating his style in English with imagination and skill. Tolstoy's romantic Anna, long-suffering Karenin, dashing Vronsky, and dozens of their family members, friends and neighbours are among the most vivid characters in world literature. In the thought-provoking Introduction to this volume, Gary Saul Morson provides unusual insights into these characters, exploring what they reveal about Tolstoy's radical conclusions on romantic love, intellectual dishonesty, the nature of happiness, the source of true evil, and more. For readers at every stage – from students first encountering Anna to literary professionals revisiting the novel – this volume will stand as the English reader's clear first choice.