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This Penguin Classic is performed by Miranda Pleasence, the stage and television actress best known for her roles in Notes on a Scandal, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and The Affair of the Necklace. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Richard Pevear.

Tolstoy's epic novel of love, destiny and self-destruction.

Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously and bitterness in its wake. Contrasting with this tale of love and self-destruction is the vividly observed story of Levin, a man striving to find contentment and a meaning to his life - and also a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.

This acclaimed modern translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky won the PEN/ Book of the Month Club Translation Prize in 2001.

'The new and brilliantly witty translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is a must' - Lisa Appignanesi, Independent, Books of the Year

'Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English, and their superb rendering allows us, as perhaps never before, to grasp the palpability of Tolstoy's "characters, acts, situations"' - James Wood, New Yorker


Translation copyright © Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky 2003 (P) Penguin Audio 2020