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Rosemary Edmonds (20 October 1905 – 26 July 1998), born Rosemary Lilian Dickie, was a British translator of Russian literature whose editions of Leo Tolstoy have been in print for 50 years.

Biography

Edmonds grew up in England and served as a translator during World War II before being hired as a translator at Penguin books. Tolstoy was her specialty.

Her translation of Anna Karenina, entitled for accuracy as Anna Karenin, appeared in 1954. In a two-volume edition, her translation of War and Peace was published in 1957. She also had translations of published of Alexander Pushkin and Ivan Turgenev.

She took the name Edmonds from her husband James Edmonds. They married in 1927. The marriage was later dissolved.

Later in life she released translations of texts by members of the Russian orthodox church. In 1982 her translation of "The Orthodox Liturgy" was published by the Oxford University Press, "primarily for the use for the Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights in Essex". She had learned Old Church Slavonic Russian to complete the project.

Her concise, elegant introductions to Anna Karenina and War and Peace show a masterful understanding of the nuance and subtlety of Tolstoy reflected by her skillful and readable translations.

She writes in the introduction to War and Peace that it "is a hymn to life. It is the Iliad and Odyssey of Russia. Its message is that the only fundamental obligation of man is to be in touch with life . . . Life is everything. Life is God . . . To love life is to love God."

Tolstoy's "private tragedy", she continues, "was that having got to the gates of the Optinsky monastery, in his final flight, he could go no further, and died."

Translations

• Leo Tolstoy (1954). Anna Karenina. Translator Rosemary Edmonds. Penguin Classics. ISBN 9780140624496.
• Leo Tolstoy (1957). War and Peace. Translator Rosemary Edmonds, introduction by Rosemary Edmonds. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0140444173.
• Leo Tolstoy. The Kreutzer Sonata And Other Stories. Translator Rosemary Edmonds. Penguin Classics. ISBN 1417923210.
• Leo Tolstoy. Resurrection. Translator Rosemary Edmonds. Penguin Classics. ISBN 9780140441840.
• Leo Tolstoy. The Death of Ivan Ilyich: The Cossacks, Happy Ever After. Translator Rosemary Edmonds. Penguin Classics.
• Leo Tolstoy. Childhood, Boyhood, Youth. Translator Rosemary Edmonds. Penguin Classics. ISBN 9780140441390.
• Ivan Turgenev. Fathers and Sons. Translator Rosemary Edmonds. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0140441476.
• Alexander Pushkin. The Queen of Spades and Other Stories. Translator Rosemary Edmonds, introduction by Rosemary Edmonds. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0140441190.
• Archimandrite Sophrony (1977). His Life is Mine: A Spiritual Testimony. Translator Rosemary Edmonds. Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press.

References

1. Obituary: Rosemary Edmonds, by James Ferguson. Date: 14 August 1998. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-rosemary-edmonds-1171487.html
2. Linga Franca, ABC Radio (Australia), Robert Dessaix compares the Anna Karenina translation of Rosemary Edmonds with that of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky -- and concludes Edmonds' is the more successful. Date: 21 April 2001. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s280459.htm

• Use dmy dates from May 2011
• 1905 births
• 1998 deaths
• British translators