From Pevear and Volokhonsky, the bestselling, award-winning translators of "Anna Karenina" and "The Brothers Karamazov," comes a brilliant, engaging, and eminently readable translation of Tolstoy's master epic.

"In pre-revolutionary Moscow, Anna (The Cranes Are Flying's Cannes award-winning Tatiana Samoilova), a beautiful young aristocrat, languishes in a loveless marriage to Karenin, a powerful politician and highly visible public figure. When her brother Stiva invites scandal in an impetuous affair with his children's governess, Anna sympathizes with Stiva's faithful wife Dolly. But when Anna's head is turned by the dashing Count Vronsky (Vasili Lanovoy),...

During the decades of his world fame as sage and preacher as well as author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Although Tolstoy perceived the question of art to be a religious one, he considered and rejected the idea that art reveals and reinvents through beauty. The works of Dante,...

"Scheherazade: A man, Habara, is confined to his home, as though under house arrest. He is visited regularly by a woman, Scheherazade, who brings provisions then has sex with him. She tells him about a boy she was in love with in high school, and how she would break into his house. She starts re-enacting the break-ins, which further enhances their passion. At the end of the story, Habara anxiously awaits her next break-in and the continuing account...