If you’ve never read it, now is the moment. This translation will show that you don’t read War and Peace, you live it
The Times

If you’ve never read it, now is the moment. This translation will show that you don’t read War and Peace, you live it
The Times

My favourite book of 2007 is this new translation of War and Peace… I’m relishing the incomparable mix of vivid description, penetrating social comment and philosophy. Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in the service of others’ work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness
Sally Vickers, Independent

I’m absolutely blown away by this translation. The main thing about reading Volokhonsky and Pevear is that I feel I’m reading a book for the first time…it’s a joy to read…There were moments in the book that hadn’t quite established themselves until this [translation]…The sense of actually being in the skin of these people is phenomenally, brilliantly rendered by this new translation
Simon Schama,

There remains the greatest of all novelists—for what else can we call the author of War and Peace
Virginia Woolf,

There remains the greatest of all novelists—for what else can we call the author of War and Peace
Virginia Woolf,

This is, at last, a translation of War and Peace without the dreadful misunderstandings and 'improvements' that plague all other translations of the novel into English. Pevear and Volokhonsky's supple and compelling translation is the closest that an English reader without Russian can get to Tolstoy's masterwork. This is a great achievement. It is hard to imagine how this translation could be superseded.”
Vladimir E. Alexandrov, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures,,

There remains the greatest of all novelists—for what else can we call the author of War and Peace
Virginia Woolf,

This is, at last, a translation of War and Peace without the dreadful misunderstandings and 'improvements' that plague all other translations of the novel into English. Pevear and Volokhonsky's supple and compelling translation is the closest that an English reader without Russian can get to Tolstoy's masterwork. This is a great achievement. It is hard to imagine how this translation could be superseded.”
Vladimir E. Alexandrov, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures,,

To read him . . . is to find one’s way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane
Thomas Mann,

It may sound pretentious, or strange, but I can remember the weeks (three weeks, to be precise) I spent reading War and Peace as a peak experience of sustained excitement and deep delight. Part of the delight was the largeness and strangeness of this world - the sense of the vastness and extremes of Russia, the unboundedness of everything
Finacial Times

It may sound pretentious, or strange, but I can remember the weeks (three weeks, to be precise) I spent reading War and Peace as a peak experience of sustained excitement and deep delight. Part of the delight was the largeness and strangeness of this world - the sense of the vastness and extremes of Russia, the unboundedness of everything
Finacial Times

It is simply the greatest novel ever written. All human life is in it. If I were told there was time to read only a single book, this would be it
Andrew Marr,

It is simply the greatest novel ever written. All human life is in it. If I were told there was time to read only a single book, this would be it
Andrew Marr,

Tolstoy is a magnificent writer. he is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical!
James Joyce,

A rollicking historical novel
Vladimir Nabokov,

There is a good argument to say that any decent library must make room for War and Peace
Independent on Sunday

There is a good argument to say that any decent library must make room for War and Peace
Independent on Sunday

War and Peace… is gleefully experimental… Tolstoy is the greatest miniaturist in the history of the novel. He is economical... [An] outlandish, wonderful novel
Adam Thirwell, Guardian

War and Peace… is gleefully experimental… Tolstoy is the greatest miniaturist in the history of the novel. He is economical... [An] outlandish, wonderful novel
Adam Thirwell, Guardian

This is, at last, a translation of War and Peace without the dreadful misunderstandings and 'improvements' that plague all other translations of the novel into English. Pevear and Volokhonsky not only render the meanings and nuances of Tolstoy's language faithfully and beautifully, they also strive to transmit the structure and feel of his prose, down to the level of individual sentences and phrases (as much as the constraints of English allow). They do so because they understand that Tolstoy is in the details: that the essence of his art is embodied in all the resources of language, and that to 'smooth' his language, to 'fill in' what he leaves unsaid, or to 'simplify' what he repeats, as all other translators do, is to betray his sui generis linguistic world and, therefore, that world's incomparably rich meanings. Pevear and Volokhonsky's supple and compelling translation is the closest that an English reader without Russian can get to Tolstoy's masterwork. This is a great achievement. It is hard to imagine how this translation could be superseded
Vladimir Alexandrov, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Yale University,

First-rate! What an artist and what a psychologist
Gustave Flaubert,

To read him . . . is to find one’s way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane
Thomas Mann,

To read him . . . is to find one’s way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane
Thomas Mann,

In War And Peace, richly observed human life - its catastrophes and passions, its thrills and tedium - mark out Tolstoy as a fox, who knows all about the dizzying diversity of existence
Observer

In War And Peace, richly observed human life - its catastrophes and passions, its thrills and tedium - mark out Tolstoy as a fox, who knows all about the dizzying diversity of existence
Observer

Reveals Tolstoy in his majestic scope and precision to this reader for the first time, unencumbered by the pidgin archaisms of previous translations, ringing with mastery and truth
Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year

Reveals Tolstoy in his majestic scope and precision to this reader for the first time, unencumbered by the pidgin archaisms of previous translations, ringing with mastery and truth
Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year

Highly and deservedly praised…is a remarkable achievement.
Contemporary Review

Highly and deservedly praised…is a remarkable achievement.
Contemporary Review

Wonderfully readable
Wendy Cope, The Week

Wonderfully readable
Wendy Cope, The Week