This talk explored the translation history of Anna Karenina, and the particular role played by Constance Garnett and Louise and Aylmer Maude in establishing Tolstoy’s reputation in the English-speaking world. This led to a discussion of some of the novel’s less well-known, but surprisingly revealing aspects, as seen from the grass-roots level of a contemporary translator, and, through a comparison of the fictional Anna with her real-life British contemporary Louise Jopling, a reconsideration of the novel’s relationship to the “woman question” in late 19th-century Russia.

For more information about the book please see Oxford University Press.