Leo Tolstoy

So you’re going to read War and Peace in English. A worthy ambition. But do you want the embedded French passages translated into English in the text itself, or in footnotes?

I read and enjoyed the Maude translation, but most people will have heard of the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation, as it was chosen for Oprah’s book club in 2004. Supposedly it sounds more like Tolstoy than, say, Garnett…