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15th May 2025

Although many first translations are vital for introducing a new readership to an important author, they themselves then become the subjects of fierce debate, for example CK Scott Moncrieff's translation of Proust. Constance Garnett (1881-1946), mother of Bloomsbury Group member David Garnett, translated a huge number of Russian classics by writers such as Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky. Despite them soon sounding dated and stilted, many of her late C19 and early C20 translations are still print. 

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