Cover of: The Master and Margarita by
An edition of Мастер и Маргарита (1966)

The Master and Margarita

1st Vintage International ed. (1)
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Last edited by Froen
January 31, 2023 | History
An edition of Мастер и Маргарита (1966)

The Master and Margarita

1st Vintage International ed. (1)
  • 4.21 ·
  • 53 Ratings
  • 289 Want to read
  • 19 Currently reading
  • 69 Have read
Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
373

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Previews available in: English Italian Russian Polish Chinese German

The first complete, annotated English Translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece.

An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of in exhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.
(back cover)

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Edition Availability
Cover of: Master and Margarita
Master and Margarita
2019, Macmillan Collector's Library
Hardcover in English
Cover of: Master and Margarita
Master and Margarita
2018, Alma Classics
Paperback in English - Revised edition
Cover of: The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita
2016, Penguin Books
Paperback in English - Pocket Penguin edition (007)
Cover of: Il maestro e Margherita
Il maestro e Margherita
2016-03, Feltrinelli
paperback in Italian - Settima ed.
Cover of: Мастер и Маргарита
Мастер и Маргарита
2015, AST
Paperback in Russian
Cover of: Mistrz i Małgorzata
Mistrz i Małgorzata
2012, Dom Wydawniczy "Rebis"
Paperback in Polish
Cover of: Мастер и Маргарита
Мастер и Маргарита: 大師與瑪格麗特
2009-04, Jiu jing chu ban, Kou ying gong si jing xiao
Paperback in Chinese - 880-03 Chu ban.
Cover of: Der Meister und Margarita
Der Meister und Margarita
2006-09, Sammlung Luchterhand
Paperback in German - 2. Auflage
Cover of: The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita
2003, BCA
Paperback in English
Cover of: The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita
1996-03, Vintage International
Paperback in English - 1st Vintage International ed. (1)
Cover of: Мастер и Маргарита
Мастер и Маргарита: roman
1994, "Sibirskai͡a kniga"
Hardcover in Russian

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Book Details


Published in

New York

Edition Notes

US/CAN

Copyright Date
1995

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
891.73/42
Library of Congress
PG3476.B78 M313 1996

The Physical Object

Format
Paperback
Pagination
372P.
Number of pages
373

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL27910148M
Internet Archive
mastermargarita0000bulg
ISBN 10
0679760806
ISBN 13
9780679760801
LCCN
95045873
OCLC/WorldCat
154557264, 695891674, 492023263
Amazon ID (ASIN)
0679760806
Google
KukqiPCRGFQC
Goodreads
117833

Work Description

The battle of competing translations, a new publishing phenomenon which began with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, now offers two rival American editions of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Mirra Ginsburg's (Grove Press) version is pointedly grotesque: she delights in the sharp, spinning, impressionistic phrase. Her Bulgakov reminds one of the virtuoso effects encountered in Zamyatin and Babel, as yell as the early Pasternak's bizarre tale of Heine in Italy. Translator Michael Glenny, on the other hand, almost suggests Tolstoy. His (Harper & Row) version is simpler, softer, and more humane. The Bulgakov fantasy is less striking here, but less strident, too. Glenny: ""There was an oddness about that terrible day...It was the hour of the day when people feel too exhausted to breathe, when Moscow glows in a dry haze..."" Ginsburg: ""Oh, yes, we must take note of the first strange thing...At that hour, when it no longer seemed possible to breathe, when the sun was tumbling in a dry haze..."" In any case, The Master and Margarita, a product of intense labor from 1928 till Bulgakov's death in 1940, is a distinctive and fascinating work, undoubtedly a stylistic landmark in Soviet literature, both for its aesthetic subversion of ""socialist realism"" (like Zamyatin, Bulgakov apparently believed that true literature is created by visionaries and skeptics and madmen), and for the purity of its imagination. Essentially the anti-scientific, vaguely anti-Stalinist tale presents a resurrected Christ figure, a demonic, tricksy foreign professor, and a Party poet, the bewildered Ivan Homeless, plus a bevy of odd or romantic types, all engaged in socio-political exposures, historical debates, and supernatural turnabouts. A humorous, astonishing parable on power, duplicity, freedom, and love.

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Excerpts

At the sunset hour of one warm spring day two men were to be seen at Patriarch's Ponds.
added by Lisa. "first sentence (English translation)"

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History

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January 31, 2023 Edited by Froen Edited without comment.
December 26, 2022 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
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December 12, 2022 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 9, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page