war and peace barnes and noble collectible

I’m fine with having multiple editions and translations of War and Peace on my bookshelves. It’s served me well and I’ll always hang on to it for sentimental reasons… but it’s also now falling apart. My older and battered edition of War and Peace is Penguin’s earlier paperback, with a portrait of a Russian princess on the front cover. You can also choose a Penguin paperback edition. If you choose to get a copy of the Anthony Briggs translation of War and Peace, Penguin offers a beautiful clothbound edition which I love. The Briggs version is a great translation for a first-time reader of War and Peace.The Briggs translation is more beautiful to read.Whether less faithful to the original or not, I simply enjoy reading the Briggs more.The Briggs translation is less clumsy than the P&V translation.

I’ve compared the Briggs translation to the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation before, but the summary from my own reading is that: The Briggs translation is written in British English, including a good deal of slang (which doesn’t bother me too much, but might infuriate others).Īs with the other translations on this list, it’s a good idea to sit down with a few different editions and choose your favourite. Much of this is down to personal preference. This is Penguin’s chosen translation, which they switched to from Rosemary Edmonds’s version.

However, that was before new translations of War and Peace entered the scene…Īnthony Briggs translation (Penguin Clothbound Classics)įor me, the best translation of War and Peace will always be the Anthony Briggs translation.

The translation received a good welcome, including by a young Hemingway, who recalls telling a friend that he could never get through War and Peace-not “until I got the Constance Garnett translation.” Garnett published her translation in 1904, working on it while Tolstoy was still alive, and she once travelled to Russia to meet Tolstoy at home. She hired a secretary who would read the Russian text to her aloud, and she would dictate back the English translation. But she also had the hurdle of losing her eyesight while working on War and Peace. Garnett was largely a self-taught translator and lacked a lot of the dictionaries and resources that would have made translation easier. I don’t think it’s necessarily the translation you should read – it’s neither easy-to-read nor precise – but it does have an interesting backstory. Garnett’s translation of War and Peace is in the public domain ( ), or via Dover Thrift as a paperback. Constance Garnett translation (Dover Thrift Editions)

War and peace barnes and noble collectible