It's War (and Peace), As Rival 
Translations Head to Bookstores

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 7/25/2007 3:00:00 PM

Two new translations of War and Peace will battle it out at bookstores this fall, with Ecco releasing a version Sept. 4 and Knopf publishing its edition Oct. 16. Will the competition create a surge of interest in Tolstoy's classic--or just confuse readers?

Readers already have a daunting number of choices. At least a dozen English translations of War and Peace exist. Just last year, Viking published a translation by Anthony Briggs that PW called "the most readable version on the market." 

The new translations, despite their identical titles and authors, are very different from each other. Ecco is calling its edition, translated by Andrew Bromfield, War and Peace: Original Version. It is essentially Tolstoy's first draft. Knopf contends that Ecco’s version is not the finished classic readers know. Ecco maintains its edition is more reader-friendly than Knopf's, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, because it is shorter and more "narrative." 

Knopf v-p, director of publicity Nicholas Latimer said executives at his house wanted to space the publication of their book at least a few months apart from Ecco’s, but "We changed ours, then they changed theirs," he said. "We were just trying to make it a different time, and they said, ‘Let’s make it the same time.’ " 

Ecco’s book is 912 pages, has illustrations and costs $34.95. Its cover features a helmet set in front of a red and black background. Knopf’s book is 1,312 pages, has no illustrations, includes many footnotes and costs $40. Its cover is eggshell blue with a small, round illustration of a golden-hued, onion-domed church.

But beyond looks, there are major distinctions. Senior v-p and publisher of Ecco Dan Halpern, who acquired Bromfield’s translation for Ecco, said, "It’s complicated. I don’t know what readers will do." Ecco is billing its book an "original version," which is to say that it’s an English translation—the first, incidentally—of Tolstoy’s first version of W&P, which was published in Russia in 2000. Tolstoy later returned to this "draft" to add philosophical and historical asides that would ultimately double the book’s length and turn it into the rendition readers know today. Ecco’s galley copy says this version is "shorter and more narrative in its initial incarnation, and with several intriguing differences in plot." Yet bookstore browsers may not be able to spot these differences initially. Halpern said his book "makes [the difference] clear, if people read the introduction. But it is confusing."

Knopf editor LuAnn Walther, however, thinks Ecco is making "a serious mistake." She fears the term "original version" will "mislead readers into thinking that if they have read this first draft, they have read War and Peace. The Bromfield edition is no more and no less than that—a first draft, which Tolstoy then reworked and revised for three years until he completed his masterpiece." She acknowledged that from a scholarly point of view, it is valuable to have an edition of Tolstoy’s first draft. But, she said, "Our edition is the real thing. We trust that readers and reviewers will recognize the difference." 

Walther even had one of her translators, Pevear, write a response to the "so-called ‘original version,’ " in which Pevear writes, " [M]uch that makes War and Peace the great novel it is was elaborated during the three years that Tolstoy spent reworking the first draft, bringing it to full realization." Walther said she would send Pevear’s explanation to anyone—namely journalists—with questions.

Knopf is positioning its book as the definitive English translation and is banking on Pevear and Volokhonsky’s prestige to garner attention and sales (the book has a 50,000-copy first printing). The translators are well-known in their field, having won three PEN awards. Knopf toasted them at a media lunch at New York’s Russian Tea Room in April. In the 2005 New Yorker article "The Translation Wars," David Remnick said Pevear and Volokhonsky "may be the premier Russian-to-English translators of the era." And when Oprah selected Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina for her book club in 2004, she specified that readers read Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translation. That edition of the book went on to sell 425,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan. 

Latimer, of Knopf, said he isn’t worried about the Ecco book cannibalizing Knopf’s sales. "If someone asks me, I’ll acknowledge [the Ecco book] exists, but it really is apples and oranges. The onus is going to be on the other guys to make theirs more appetizing in some way."

So how appetizing is Ecco’s book? Julia Serebrinsky, a former book editor who is bilingual in Russian and English and now works at literary agency Level 5 Media, read a portion of each book and said she found Ecco’s "more reader-friendly" than Knopf’s, largely because it does not contain as much French. Much of W&P’s dialogue is in French, which was favored by the Russian aristocracy of the time. 

Knopf’s version keeps the French, and translates it into English in footnotes. "Somebody who’s looking for pure authenticity is going to be drawn to the Knopf edition," said Serebrinsky. But Ecco’s translation is more appealing to general readers, she said. Ecco’s translator, Andrew Bromfield, is the British co-founder and editor of the literary journal Glas and best known for his translations of works by Victor Pelevin.

All conversations with Ecco staffers inevitably brought up the house’s 2003 publication of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Edith Grossman. The nearly 1,000-page tome, which BookScan says sold 56,000 copies in hardcover, is in many ways a model for Ecco’s publication of War and Peace. Halpern said that book’s success influenced his decision to publish a new translation of W&P, and Ecco publicity director Michael McKenzie said, "We’re hoping to follow in the footsteps of what we did with Don Quixote a few years ago, and expect similar coverage."

The inevitable media coverage for W&P might help readers distinguish between the two versions; executives at both houses agreed the books will probably be reviewed by most media together. Halpern said the timing "certainly gives newspapers a chance to do something unusual." But readers who don’t know the back story may be confused in bookstores. "I think package will be crucial," said Serebrinsky. "The average reader will have a choice between a more accessible, less familiar version [Ecco’s] and a more orthodox approach that honors the classic as it is universally recognized and beloved [Knopf’s]. In any case, this choice serves readers well. May both books win the audience. If they inspire new conversation about the masterpiece, all the better."