Anna Karenina (Oxford World's Classics)

Excellent hard cover copy, high quality paper and print. There are extensive notes at the back and a nice introduction by Bartlett (recommended to read after you finish the book since it might contain spoilers). I am writing this review after reading part 1. I like how this translation flows so seamlessly and is very engrossing. You always remain in the story and it never feels like you are reading a translation. I previously read the P&V penguin edition and I loved that as well. This one just pips it by a hair for its smoothness.

This translation is the most fluent and elegant comparing to other translations that I sampled. I enjoy it thoroughly. After reading the book I am puzzled why the book is named as it is. The Anna-Vronsky plot line is only less than 50% of the book, which I read through with lukewarm curiosity. The rest is Levin-Kitty plot line, which I cherish the most and gives me the impression that is also closer to author's heart. The adversities Levin and Kitty have to live through are the kind common to all humans. It's heart warming to see that they overcome, and grow stronger and fuller in a happy life with extensive family and friendship bonds. The book has broad realistic coverage on country life, farming labor conditions, human natures of all walks of life, and the inner struggle of a few main characters to make sense of their lives. On a quest seeking wisdom and guidance, I value this book as much as Middlemarch. The build and printing quality is very good. I find no fault. Except that the paper has an odor resembles newly manufactured wood that reluctantly fades.

This is a beautiful hardback version. Bought for my 17-year-old niece to help her build a library of the great classics. It’s a beautiful yet tragic story that also provides a wise cautionary tale about “following your heart”.

Bartlett's translation is excellent. I have read the P&V translation in the past, and did a comparison on a few chapters, and felt Bartlett's was a much nicer read. I don't know enough about "Russian-ness" of either translation, but I am more than happy with reading the Bartlett. This is one of my favorite novels. I wanted to buy a hardcover version of it, and this seemed to fit the bill. However, I noticed that the binding is glued. I really wish hardcover/clothbound books would be sewn, not glued, but it seems to be a trend these days. I feel these are quasi-hardback, since I feel like the most important part of a hardback/clothbound book is the sewn binding and not the actual cover. It's the sewn binding that gives it its longevity and good feel, as the book stays open much easier. A glued binding seems like a glorified paperback.

I got this version for the translation. Anyone reading Russian literature is well served by researching the translations, which can change the reading experience. Regarding the novel, it’s Tolstoy, it’s great.

It took Tolstoy ten years to write this book and it is easy to see why; it is multilayered and exceedingly brilliantly written.. I found it easy reading, and will always remember this book. It would be hard to forget as Tolstoy was born a noble and was well educated, but did not prosper until he finished this first book, War and Peace, he wrote about the tiny bit of freedom women had in Tsarist Russia. Anna (Anya in Russian) was also a noblewoman who indiscreetly had an affair that wrecked her marriage and life with a high Government Official who made her pay by giving him ownership of her child of Count Vronsky. There were two plots and Anna and Levi met only once. Levi and Tolstoy came to the end believing that God, Christ and family were the most important parts of a human's life. He thought men should be the lead in a marriage. Both at the end of a long life decided it was NOT nobility or the well educated that were wisest but peasants, and those that worked the fields such as Cesar Chavez. (He would have loved Chavez). A great book, truly and as good if not better than Dickens-as he put more into it-all encompassing of human strife and those who were discreet in having an affair of the heart was the right way to 'carry on' with a man not the husband. There are many highly cited philosophical statements concerning Anna (Anya) as she was both smart and brought low in life, was as Hurricanes and waves-she had to live a diminished life with some mania due to her affair with Vronsky. I highly recommend this book to the over 18 year old unless they are precocious.

Rosamund Bartlett's translation of Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina' is outstanding and made the novel a joy to read again after many years. It is especially good due to the contextual and explanatory notes she provides at puzzling points in the text. Bartlett has also written a comprehensive, enthralling biography of Tolstoy that links his life events, writing, and his inner turmoil to the full sweep of cultural, societal and political change that riveted Russia in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. It's this deep understanding of his thinking that makes her translation so alive and pertinent. I would recommend reading this novel in full after recent film and television versions that constrict the story to the bare bones of Anna's predicament, moving as this is. The novel is broad sweeping and addresses so many other subjects and characters, a true epic that casts light on a feudal society on the cusp of modernism.

It is a re-read for me. I read it in my early twenties, and remember that I liked it, but forgot a lot of details. Tolstoy is a wonderful author. The people in his novel are all very different; all of them very emotional and "alive". They always encompass good and bed in them. No character is entirely a saint or a devil. His description of life style in the late 19th century Russia is like a painting; so are his descriptions of peasant life, religious ceremonies in the Orthodox Church, and places the characters are encountering. I recommend reading the introduction with the story line first, so one does not get inpatient with the descriptive details of the book.

内容は言うまでもなく、英訳（Bartlett）も編集も、★5ですが、残念ながら造本で減点です。 800ページもの大冊なので、弁当箱のようなペーパーバックよりもハードカバーのほうが手に馴染むと考えて、あえて値段の高いほうを選びました。それはそれでよかったのですが、本文用紙に横目の紙が使われているため、違和感があってページがはなはだめくりにくい（2017年改訂版の第13刷）。 ボリュームの関係で束の出ない紙を使うのは当然としても、あえて横目の紙に印刷して薄い紙の腰の弱さを補おうとするのは、いささか邪道ではないでしょうか。電子書籍を選べってか？

Bartlett’s translation is extremely faithful to Tolstoy’s original prose. She maintained the structure and rhythm of Russian without oversimplifying or modernising. She also avoided embellishing or over-interpreting the original text, and maintained the same simplicity and directness that is the hallmark of Tolstoy’s writing, especially in conversations and inner monologues. This is what those who know Russian have said about her translation. I don’t speak Russian. Hence I cannot attest to that. But having read four translations of AK (Garnett, Maude, P&V being the others), what I could definitely say is that besides being the most easy read, Bartlett’s translation has a great level of sophistication and nuance. It feels the most smooth and accessible among all translations I have read. It doesn’t appear too literal or too liberal, and maintains a balance between readability and fidelity (I can say this by comparing it with the P&V translation which is said to be word-by-word). Most importantly, it seems to have rendered Russian idiomatic expressions and cultural references in a way that is understandable in English without compromising the text. That is why it reads more like a modern mix of Garnett and Maude translation, but without the Victorian embellishments. Also, all the philosophy that Tolstoy inserted into this book is more palatable in Bartlett’s translation than in any other. Unless you are studying Russian, you are mostly a casual reader of Anna Karenina. This novel is really long and has longer sentences that meander for several lines with a lot of repeating phrases after every fourth word. So, pick a translation that is less confusing and easy to read. For an academic translation, Bartlett’s feels very simple, yet it is very elegantly written. You won’t regret choosing this one if you can afford it. Or else, Garnett or Maudes float freely online. This book is a hardcover from Oxford University Press. The text is printed in sufficiently large letters and used the most lovely fonts I have come across in a book. I like it so much.

Great translation (went for it after comparing the first chapter across translations), good size and not printed to small

The translation by Rosamund Bartlett is a masterpiece and makes reading this book a delight. So many translations are technically brilliant, but wooden, don't flow and do not connect with the original and the reader. AK was easy to read and thoroughly enjoyable unlike many Russian to English translations. She's in the same league as the Chandlers......

Nicely organized with helpful notes which clarify terms in text. I like that the translator allowed single Russian words to appear in text. Overall, a delightful read about family life in Russia in the 19th century and a good escape from our daily pandemic worries.