Oxford World's Classics Hardback Collection: Anna Karenina

Charl: 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.

United States on Jul 17, 2023

T. Denniss: This is beautifully produced and good value for money. Relaxing and lovely to read.

United Kingdom on Jul 11, 2023

Tia EM: I’m not sure whether I’d say I enjoyed this book - but I certainly experienced it, haha.
I dived in head first and this was the very first Tolstoy book I’ve read and I don’t regret it, even if the characters made me want to tear my hair out a little!

Delivered in perfect condition, I love the Oxford Classic editions! The introduction and extra info is incredibly helpful.

United Kingdom on Mar 10, 2023

masurenko: 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？

Japan on Nov 11, 2022

Sandi Richmond: Rosamund Bartlett did an outstanding job translating this Russian Book into English. I loved the story of Anna and regretted her demise. I did not like the Levin story as much because I felt his character came off as unstable and whiny. The wedding scene was great though. The birth was interesting and vivid. Thanks to Tolstoy for this story.

United States on Sep 27, 2022

Sherry Snyder: 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...

United States on Sep 03, 2021

RobertRobert: Ever since I got my very first Anna Karenina when I was like 12 I've been trying to read it, 15 years later I finally caved and started to search for a better translation than the one I had which is still a slog to read.
Ms Bartlett fixed that problem! a decade and a half of barely getting to the second page before desisting I flew thru the kindle sample of this edition (and I did downloaded all the ones in English and Spanish available from trusted editorial houses). I even ended up ordering the book cited on the introduction of this edition (Approaches to teaching Anna Karenina).
The notes are wonderfully linked so you only click on the number and it takes you from the text to the note and back, all of them are put at the end of the book and can be easily read together if you choose to but the translations are place at the end of each chapter.
My only qualm is that this translation is not available on a better physical editions than the famously rough ones Oxford University Press offers as Hard and Paperbacks.
Edit regarding the Harback edition:
I finally decided, a little over a year later, to get myself a physical copy but, unable to decide which one I bought...

Mexico on Oct 03, 2020

Count Makarov: I began with the zero cost Amazon Kindle version of over 1100 pages, translated by Constance Garnett. She died in 1942.
About one sixth of the way I became a little disenchanted by her prose, or interpretation. I thought that there must be other translations. I was right, I found a few. One was by an American couple, well known but I've forgotten their names; easy to look up of course. Another was Rosamund Bartlett's translation completed in 2014. She is an Oxford Don, which I admit impressed me, and I decided to download that from Amazon at a cost of AU$8.43.
Bartlett's version offered about 870 pages.
Finding my place from the original version, I commenced reading the new one from there. I read until about two thirds of the way through that version. By that time I became too irritated to continue and I reverted to the earlier version.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I changed from the Garnett version because I felt that her translation was written in a slightly older, pre-war, type of English. I felt that, being about one and a half generations younger, my appreciation of the narrative would be improved by a later interpretation. However, after reading Bartlett's interpretation...

Australia on Dec 27, 2017

Nichole Long: I enjoyed this epic novel. It took me 2 months to read on my Kindle. I agree with other reviewers that Tolstoy perhaps should have given the book a different title (Ex. "Konstantine Levin," "Anna and Levin," or even "What Love Really Is") as the novel parallels the love stories of both Anna/Vronsky and Levin/Kitty. Tolstoy, however, knew what he was doing, as all master writers do. Anna Karenina is perhaps the most famous novel of all time.

This novel is not a "love story" in the traditional sense because Tolstoy actually compares both couples. What constitutes true love between a man and a woman? Is passionate love really that big a deal at the end of the day? What keeps a couple together?

Favorite characters: Levin, Kitty, Karenin, and Dolly. Why? Tolstoy fleshed out the humanity and inner journey of each of these characters well. The souls of these people grew as the novel progressed, and I marveled at their journeys toward forgiveness, growth, and self-acceptance. Their lives were never going to be perfect, but they did the best they could do - without intentionally hurting others. Through terrible trials, they became adults.

I found Levin's (really...

United States on May 28, 2017

Anne Rice: This review is for the Rosamund Bartlett translation of "Anna Karenina." ---- For years, I rejected new translations of this great novel when they came my way. I tried them. I simply couldn't sink into them. I compared them all in my heart of hearts to the great Constance Garnett. But I've decided now that I do want to explore the latest translations and I've begun with Rosamund Bartlett. Well, I'm loving this. I have spent considerable time moving through the novel focusing only on the passages that pertain to Kitty and Levin, and I am swept up in prose that is so beautiful it has moved me more than once to tears. ----- I am not equipped really to access a translation from Russian into English except subjectively and emotionally. And I am weighing in to say that I love Bartlett's language. It resonates with my concept of Tolstoy, and my concept of this magnificent novel. I recommend this book. ----- I'm hoping to approach other translations in the coming days. But I don't think a new reader of "Anna" could go wrong with Bartlett. I am also very happy with her new biography of Tolstoy as well.

United States on Feb 20, 2015