War and Peace (Vintage Classic Russians Series)

If you’ve never read it, now is the moment. This translation will show that you don’t read War and Peace, you live it * The Times *This is, at last, a translation of War and Peace without the dreadful misunderstandings and “improvements” that plague all other translations of the novel into English. Pevear and Volokhonsky’s supple and compelling translation is the closest that an English reader without Russian can get to Tolstoy’s masterwork. This is a great achievement. It is hard to imagine how this translation could be superseded.” – Vladimir E. Alexandrov, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures,It is simply the greatest novel ever written. All human life is in it. If I were told there was time to read only a single book, this would be it – Andrew MarrReveals Tolstoy in his majestic scope and precision to this reader for the first time, unencumbered by the pidgin archaisms of previous translations, ringing with mastery and truth * Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year *It may sound pretentious, or strange, but I can remember the weeks (three weeks, to be precise) I spent reading War and Peace as a peak experience of sustained excitement and deep delight. Part of the delight was the largeness and strangeness of this world - the sense of the vastness and extremes of Russia, the unboundedness of everything * Finacial Times *There is a good argument to say that any decent library must make room for War and Peace * Independent on Sunday *War and Peace… is gleefully experimental… Tolstoy is the greatest miniaturist in the history of the novel. He is economical… [An] outlandish, wonderful novel – Adam Thirwell * Guardian *The greatest of all novels. Read it again, to test and savour the infallible truth of Tolstoy’s understanding of every stage and aspect of human life – Alan Hollinghurst * New York Times *To read him … is to find one’s way home … to everything within us that is fundamental and sane – Thomas MannIn War And Peace, richly observed human life - its catastrophes and passions, its thrills and tedium - mark out Tolstoy as a fox, who knows all about the dizzying diversity of existence * Observer *

Leo Tolstoy was born in central Russia on 9 September 1828. In 1852 he published his first work, the autobiographical Childhood. He served in the army during the Crimean War and his Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6) are based on his experiences. His two most popular masterpieces are War and Peace (1864-69) and Anna Karenina (1875-8). He died in 1910.

Together, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have translated works by Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, Bulgakov and Pasternak. They were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize (for their translations of Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina) and their translation of Dostoevsky’s Demons was one of three nominees for the same prize. They are married and live in France.

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