Five of the Best European Classics

'Europe may be made up of many cultures but its component parts share an artistic and literary sensibility, says Everyman's Library publisher David Campbell. Here, he recommends five European classics that everyone should read at least once in their life, including "the greatest novel ever written" and some lesser-known masterpieces.'

Interview by Cal Flyn at Five Books.

"I quite often read the Pleiade edition [of Tolstoy's War and Peace], but I’m reading the new Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky edition—which is fascinating—the first three or four pages are in French. In the Louise and Aylmer Maude edition, which I publish at Everyman, it’s all of course in English, but Richard and Larissa have kept Tolstoy’s French, which is quite interesting."

See Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilytch, "The Three Hermits", and "What Men Live By", in Gateway to the Great Books (10 Vol., 1963) volume 3, and War and Peace, in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 51, and (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 51.