Anna Karenina (Everyman's Library) [Hardcover]

Leo Tolstoy (Author), Louise Maude (Translator), Aylmer Maude (Translator), John Bayley (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 1992

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

A famous legend surrounding the creation of Anna Karenina tells us that Tolstoy began writing a cautionary tale about adultery and ended up falling in love with his magnificent heroine. It is rare to find a reader of the book who doesn’t experience the same kind of emotional upheaval. Anna Karenina is filled with major and minor characters who exist in their own right and fully embody their mid-nineteenth-century Russian milieu, but it still belongs entirely to the woman whose name it bears, whose portrait is one of the truest ever made by a writer.

Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Russian

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1024 pages
• Publisher: Everyman's Library (April 28, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679410007
• ISBN-13: 978-0679410003
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.8 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Russian

More About the Author

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) wrote two of the great novels of the nineteenth century, War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

111 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beware, wrong translation!, January 11, 2006

By 

Michael J. Keyes (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Anna Karenina (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

The Everyman's Library edition of Anna Karenina is the Maude translation, not the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation praised by so many readers. That translation is available in a Penguin paperback and an out-of-print Viking hardcover edition. Amazon erred in displaying the readers' reviews of the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation under the description of the Everyman's Library book.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime reading, December 30, 2000

By 

doc peterson (Portland, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Anna Karenina (Oxford World's Classics) (Hardcover)

Tolstoy's classic Anna Karenina is a masterpiece. If I were stranded on a desert isle, this is one of the books I would want with me. The story is essentially about a woman who leaves her husband for another man, only to come to a tragic end. Yet the main character is not really Anna, but Kostya Levin, almost the antithesis of Anna. And it is this polarization of characters that is one of the sublime features of this novel.

The characters themselves are especially an element that engrossed me. While there are a dizzying number of personalities, each lives "outside" of the story as well as within it - that is to say, even the most minor of characters seems to have a life of their own, only dropping in the story to play a small part before going on about their business. Each character has depth - they are much more than characitures of "good" and "evi", showing their humanity in their follies and in their decisions - for both good and evil.

Tolstoy has an alternative motive in Anna Karenina, though. The story has a barely perceptable religious tone to it, Tolstoy makes a moral statement about how life should be lived, and what a person's role in life should be in order to be "truly happy". This is the result of an epiphany that Tolstoy experienced while writing the novel - an event that changed his life and eventually estranged him from many of his children.

The only problem I foresee readers having is keeping characters straight (as this translation uses names as well as patronymics - meaning "the son / daughter of" as in Stepan Arkadyvitch: Stepan, son of Arkady). Individuals are referred to by name, patronymic or sometimes nickname (Kostya for Konstantin for example.) My recommendation is to write the characters down in order to keep track of them. With this said, I highly recommend this book - the language is beautiful, the plot is riviting, the story line although a bit moralistic is superb, and the characters are vivid and real.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vanished world, eternal emotions, March 23, 2000

By 

"sukiyaki02" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anna Karenina (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

'Anna Karenina' is not just a window on a vanished time, place, and society - it is a lucid reflection on our own times and a spellbinding work of art. By taking us so intimately into the passions of Anna and the internal musings of Levin (just two out of a huge, colorful cast), Tolstoy creates an unforgettable exploration of happiness and sadness, conflict and peace, morals and emotions, mind and heart. Read this book for its wonderful story, Tolstoy's magically down-to-earth language, the subtly sketched characters - and the thoughts it is sure to provoke long after the last page.