Which Anna Karenina Translation Should You Read?
Four real, currently-published English translations compared — plus the free public-domain one you can start reading on this site right now.
Short answer: for a first read today, Pevear & Volokhonsky's Penguin Classics translation is the most widely recommended and most available — it won the PEN Translation Prize and was an Oprah's Book Club pick. If you want a smoother, more contemporary idiomatic English while keeping Tolstoy's signature repetitions, try Rosamund Bartlett's Oxford World's Classics edition. If you want the most literal rendering of Tolstoy's actual sentence rhythm — including the deliberate awkwardness other translators smooth away — read Marian Schwartz (Yale). If you just want to read it tonight for free, Constance Garnett's public-domain translation (the one on this site) is a real, complete translation and costs nothing.
| Translator | Edition | Style | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Constance Garnett FREE |
1901, public domain (widely reprinted) | Literal vocabulary, dated Edwardian English; smooths some of Tolstoy's rougher rhythm | First-time readers who want to start today, for free |
| Pevear & Volokhonsky | Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, ISBN 978-0-14-303500-8 | Preserves Tolstoy's long sentences and repetitions; PEN Translation Prize winner, Oprah's Book Club pick | Most first-time readers today; the default classroom edition |
| Rosamund Bartlett | Oxford World's Classics, 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-923208-6 | Modern, idiomatic British English that reads naturally, while keeping Tolstoy's repetitions | Readers who want fidelity without the occasional stiffness of a literal rendering |
| Marian Schwartz | Yale University Press (Margellos World Republic of Letters), ISBN 978-0-300-21682-0 | The most literal of the four — embraces Tolstoy's deliberate awkwardness rather than smoothing it | Rereaders and anyone who wants the closest match to Tolstoy's actual Russian syntax |
Constance Garnett (1901) — read it free right now
Garnett was the first translator to bring most of the great 19th-century Russian novelists to English readers at scale, and her Anna Karenina has been in print continuously for over a century. Modern reviewers note her vocabulary choices are quite literal but that she smoothed some of Tolstoy's more repetitive, run-on sentence rhythm into tidier English — for most readers, especially on a first read, that keeps the plot moving without losing the story.
Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky (Penguin Classics Deluxe)
Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation became the modern default largely because Oprah Winfrey's book club picked it, sending it to the top of bestseller lists and into classrooms. It preserves Tolstoy's long, sometimes repetitive sentences rather than tidying them into shorter English ones — a deliberate choice that reviewers describe as polarizing: some find it the truest rendering of Tolstoy's voice available in English, others find a few passages awkward compared to a more idiomatic translation.
Rosamund Bartlett (Oxford World's Classics, 2014)
Bartlett's translation keeps Tolstoy's structural quirks — including his repetitions — while rendering them in English that reads more naturally to a contemporary ear than Garnett, the Maudes, or even Pevear and Volokhonsky at their most literal. It's a good middle path for readers who want fidelity to the original but don't want the prose to ever feel like a demonstration of Russian grammar.
Marian Schwartz (Yale University Press)
Schwartz was one of the first English translators to fully embrace Tolstoy's deliberate awkwardness — the long, cumulative sentences and repeated words that earlier translators, including Pevear and Volokhonsky, still smoothed at the margins. Her translation was a finalist for the National Translation Award and is the closest match to Tolstoy's actual sentence rhythm in Russian, at the cost of occasionally reading less "polished" than the other three.
As an Amazon Associate, MyBookPDF earns from qualifying purchases. Anna Karenina is free to read in Constance Garnett's public-domain translation on this site; the other three translations are paid editions and the links above are optional.
Translator, publisher, and ISBN details checked against publisher and retailer listings, September 2026. Publishers periodically issue new print runs of the same translation under new cover editions; the ISBNs above identify the specific edition described.
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