The Kreutzer Sonata

by Leo Tolstoy • 1880

On comparing with the original Russian some English translations of Count Tolstoi's works, published both in this country and in England, I concluded that they were far from being accurate. The majority of them were retranslations from the French, and I found that the respective transitions through which they had passed tended to obliterate many of the beauties of the Russian language and of the peculiar characteristics of Russian life.