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The Master and Margarita: 50th-Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Paperback – Deckle Edge, May 3, 2016

by Mikhail Bulgakov (Author), Christopher Conn Askew (Illustrator), Richard Pevear (Translator),
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,829 ratings
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A 50th-anniversary Deluxe Edition of the incomparable 20th-century masterpiece of satire and fantasy, in a newly revised version of the acclaimed Pevear and Volokhonsky translation
 
Nothing in the whole of literature compares with The Master and Margarita. One spring afternoon, the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow. Mikhail Bulgakov’s fantastical, funny, and devastating satire of Soviet life combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with historical, imaginary, frightful, and wonderful characters. Written during the darkest days of Stalin’s reign, and finally published in 1966 and 1967, The Master and Margarita became a literary phenomenon, signaling artistic and spiritual freedom for Russians everywhere.
 
This newly revised translation, by the award-winning team of Pevear and Volokhonsky, is made from the complete and unabridged Russian text.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. 

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  1. Print length
    448 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Classics
  4. Publication date
    May 3, 2016
  5. Dimensions
    5.65 x 1.15 x 8.34 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0143108271
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0143108276
  8. See all details
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  1. The thought that there is no greater misfortune in the world than the loss of reason?
    Highlighted by 479 Kindle readers
  2. Now, Berlioz wanted to prove to the poet that the main thing was not how Jesus was, good or bad, but that this same Jesus, as a person, simply never existed in the world, and all the stories about him were mere fiction, the most ordinary mythology.
    Highlighted by 441 Kindle readers
  3. Bulgakov’s gentle irony is a warning against the mistake, more common in our time than we might think, of equating artistic mastery with a sort of saintliness, or, in Kierkegaard’s terms, of confusing the aesthetic with the ethical.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“My favorite novel—it’s just the greatest explosion of imagination, craziness, satire, humor, and heart.” —Daniel Radcliffe

“From the first page I was immediately beguiled, leading me to my year of reading Bulgakov, drawing me to venture to Moscow to seek out the landmarks in the book, and the author’s grave, which is steps away from the grave of Gogol.” —Patti Smith, The New York Times Book Review

“Nude vampires, gun-toting talking black cat, and devil as ultimate party starter aside, the miracle of this novel is that every time you read it, it’s a different book.” —Marlon James, “My 10 Favorite Books,” in T: The New York Times Style Magazine

“I read it first as an 18-year-old and, just like a meteor from a distant galaxy, it hit my tender young brain and dug its way deep into its gray material. It has nestled there ever since, radiating with beauty and wonder, irony and horror.” —Sjón, Vulture

“One of the truly great Russian novels of [the twentieth] century.” —The New York Times Book Review
 
“By turns hilarious, mysterious, contemplative, and poignant . . . A great work.” —Chicago Tribune
 
“A soaring, dazzling novel; an extraordinary fusion of wildly disparate elements. It is a concerto played simultaneously on the organ, the bagpipes, and a pennywhistle, while someone sets off fireworks between the players’ feet.” —The New York Times
 
“Fine, funny, imaginative . . . The Master and Margarita stands squarely in the great Gogolesque tradition of satiric narrative.” —Newsweek
 
“A wild surrealistic romp . . . Brilliantly flamboyant and outrageous.” —Joyce Carol Oates
 
“Beautiful, strange, tender, scarifying, and incandescent . . . One of those novels that, even in translation, make one feel that not one word could have been written differently . . . Margarita has too many achievements to list—for one thing, a plot scudding with action and suspense, not exactly a hallmark of Russian literature. . . . This luminous translation [is] distinguished by not only the stylistic elegance that has become a hallmark of Pevear and Volokhonsky translations but also a supreme ear for the sound and meaning of Soviet life. . . . It’s time for The Master and Margarita to rise to its rightful place in the canon of great world literature. . . . As literature, it will live forever.” —Boris Fishman, from the Foreword

About the Author

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) was a doctor, a novelist, a playwright, a short-story writer, and the assistant director of the Moscow Arts Theater. His body of work includes The White Guard, The Fatal Eggs, Heart of a Dog, and his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, published more than twenty-five years after his death and cited as an inspiration for Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (translators) have translated works by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, and Pasternak. They were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize, for their translations of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Pevear, a native of Boston, and Volokhonsky, of St. Petersburg, are married and live in Paris.

Boris Fishman (foreword) is the author of two novels, A Replacement Life, which was one of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2014 and won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Medal, and Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo. His journalism, essays, and criticism have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, the London Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. Fishman has taught at Princeton University and New York University. Born in Minsk, Belarus, he moved to the United States at age nine and now lives in New York.

Christopher Conn Askew (cover illustrator) is a painter and tattoo artist whose illustrations have appeared on the covers of books, albums, and magazines. He lives in Los Angeles.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; Deluxe edition (May 3, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143108271
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143108276
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.65 x 1.15 x 8.34 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 3,829 ratings

About the author

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Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov

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Mikhaíl Afanasyevich Bulgakov (/bʊlˈɡɑːkəf/; Russian: Михаи́л Афана́сьевич Булга́ков, pronounced [mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bʊlˈɡakəf]; May 15 [O.S. May 3] 1891 – March 10, 1940) was a Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Unknown [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Top reviews from the United States

Tatiana Tikhonko
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant translation
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2024
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Master & Margarita by Michail Bulgakov is my favorite book since I first read it in Russia many years ago. I always thought that it's such a pity there is no way to translate it to English and let my friends to enjoy this
"tasty" spirit of language Bulgakov used. And finally I found the book translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky that doing just that. Bravo!
7 people found this helpful
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Anthony Policastro
5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece of Russian Literature
Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2023
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When I think of masterpieces of Russian literature, I often think of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, as well as Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov. I also think of Alexander Pushkin’s epic poem Eugene Onegin, Ivan Turgenev’s A Hunter’s Sketches, Fathers and Sons, First Love and Faust, Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time, Anton Chekhov’s plays and short stories – “The Three Sisters,” “Uncle Vanya,” and “The Cherry Orchard” – and Nicholai Gogol’s Dead Souls. During the period of Soviet oppression, there are such writers as Boris Pasternak who wrote Dr. Zhivago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who wrote Cancer Ward, The Gulag Archipelago, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, August 1914, and March 1917. And then there is Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of noteworthy plays, and his masterpiece The Master and Margarita, written between 1928 and 1940, and published in 1966 and 1967.
I read the Penguin Classic Deluxe Edition, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, with an Introduction by Richard Pevear and a Foreword by Boris Fishman.
You will discover that Bulgakov has infused The Master and Margarita with the political satire of the Soviet regime, and with interesting and fantastical characters. Moreover, the genre is not only political satire, but a fantasy, filled with allegories, and literary allusions.
The fantasy is about the Devil (Woland) who arrives in modern-day Moscow with his henchmen – Koroviev, his valet, Azazello, his hit man, Hella, a female vampire, and Behemoth, a large black cat. They all possess supernatural powers and create chaos in their wake. Part of the chaos is slapstick comedy and quite hilarious, but other parts are quite serious, a commentary or satire on Soviet oppression, resulting in murder. For instance, the death of Mikhail Berlioz, the head of a writer’s union, after meeting Woland at Patriarch Ponds, where they sit on a bench and converse, is unexpected. From that moment onward, the chaos becomes more profound and alarming. This is evident at Woland’s séance at the Variety Theater, the shenanigans at Berlioz’s summer restaurant – The House of Griboedov - on Griboedov Street, and at Berlioz’s apartment, number 50, on Sadovaya Street. All three are primary locations where fantastical, supernatural, and black magical phenomena take place. Especially, at Berlioz’s much sought-after apartment, where Woland and his henchmen have taken up temporary residence.
Margarita enters in book two, and she is a beauty, who is more than willing to do anything for her lover, the Master, who has authored a book about Pontius Pilate, the fifth procurator of Judea, and the passion and crucifixion of Jesus (Jeshua, Ha-Nozri), on Bald Mountain (Golgotha). Throughout the book, Bulgakov returns to the Master’s story, the Pontius Pilate story, (which is a story within a story) every now and again. You will find the conversation between Jesus and Pilate to be captivating and interesting, especially if you compare them to the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John. The story engenders strong emotions of sadness and guilt, analogous to what the secret police, and what others, might have felt later, after the downfall of the Soviet regime.
For the sake of the Master, her lover, who the authorities locked away in room 118 in a psychiatric clinic, Margarita agrees to become a witch, temporarily, and accompany Woland and his retinue to a Devilish Ball. Afterwards, Woland grants her a wish, reuniting her and her lover in their basement apartment, where he spent years earlier writing the Pontius Pilate story.
As Woland and his henchmen depart Moscow, with Margarita and the Master, riding strong steeds into the moonlight, and as Pontius Pilate simultaneously walks into the moonlight in Ivan Nikolaevich’s dream, you cannot help but feel the sadness and nostalgia of the penultimate and last chapter of the book. “Forgiveness and Eternal Refuge,” and the “Epilogue” could easily bring you to tears, as if someone - the regime, Pontius Pilate - were indeed asking for forgiveness. Walking into the moonlight, Pilate says to his companion, “Gods, gods…tell me it never happened! I implore you, tell me, it never happened!” And his walking companion replies, “Well, of course it never happened…you imagined it.” He swears to it, and Pilates says, “I need nothing more,” ending the story with profound emotions of denial and guilt. And thus ends Bulgakov’s political satire and masterpiece.
Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita exceeded all my expectations. You will find this book to be enlightening, educational, and entertaining. It is a masterpiece, and thus, I highly recommend this book to all readers.
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Howard Schulman
4.0 out of 5 stars I struggled with it, too, but definitely appreciated it more the 2 nd time
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2012
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I have very mixed feelings writing a review of The Master and the Margarita. If you speak with practically any Russian who has graduated college in Russia, they have read the novel, and they smile when you mention it. And the story behind the novel is perhaps just as important as the novel itself. Bulgakov wrote it between 1928 and 1940 during the height of Stalin's Reign of Terror, and it wasn't until 1966 that it was published, and when it was published, it went viral.

Furthermore, Bulgakov's family and Bulgakov himself had supported the anti-Bolshevik White Army during the Civil War and he continued to write satires of the existing regime. He should have been erased, but for some God-only-knows reason Stalin liked him, so he lived. Bulgakov even wrote Stalin that he wanted to get out of the USSR, and lived.

The novel itself is not only hard for a non-Russian speaker to read because of the difficulty in following the difficult Russian names and nicknames (though with some help and effort you can deal with this), but in the translation there are a lot of word plays that are lost, especially in people names. Additionally, many of the places and characters and organizations and occurrences are closely based on 1920s-1930s early Soviet life. This is a large part of the novel and is also all lost to all but the most knowledgeable modern reader.

Nevertheless, Pevear and Volokhonsky's introduction and frequent footnotes (easily accessed on the Kindle version) at least give the reader a feeling for what they are missing. For instance, knowing about the struggles the early Soviet Republic had trying to control currency is essential to be able to laugh at the scenes where money falls from the ceiling of the theater, only to change to useless pieces of paper the next day. Also, knowing about the severe housing shortage in Moscow following the Bolshevik take over makes it funny when the uncle of the deceased poet comes to Moscow not to participate in the funeral, but to lay claim to the deceased's empty apartment unit.

The scene where the main character goes for a swim (?to save someone from drowning) only to have his clothes stolen and switched out for clowns clothing....and then have this guy investigated by a seemingly relatively well-meaning psychiatrist (Dr. Stravinsky) for running around town all dressed up as a clown is funny on many levels.

Admittedly, this is the second time I read this book, the first time about 7 years ago, and I didn't get much out of it then. Since then, I have read a fair deal of late Russian and Soviet history, especially Figes (see all my reviews of him, he's super fantastic), so when I read M & M this time, it made a lot more sense and I appreciated the satire and humor much more. There is a gradesaver.com Cliff's Notes style study guide with chapter summaries, that I found helpful as I read along. Laura Weeks also has a short paperback on M & M. I found the introduction very interesting regarding the background, though the later chapters were beyond my level of interest.

Good luck and I hope you appreciate the book.
63 people found this helpful
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John Avery Saye
5.0 out of 5 stars Tale as old as time
Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2024
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I loved the way this story played out. It makes you wonder with each chapter what crazy thing will happen next.
One person found this helpful
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Agustín Quevedo Torres
5.0 out of 5 stars Class, pure class!
Reviewed in Mexico on August 24, 2023
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Excelente novela y edición de aniversario encantadora. Lo recomiendo ampliamente.
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Agustín Quevedo Torres
5.0 out of 5 stars Class, pure class!
Reviewed in Mexico on August 24, 2023
Excelente novela y edición de aniversario encantadora. Lo recomiendo ampliamente.
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Rob Chwyl
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun & Meaningful
Reviewed in Canada on July 8, 2022
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This was a book I had trouble putting down; it was entertaining cover to cover. Bulgakov's writing is very descriptive and had me laughing many times. Despite the fun and magical nature of the book, it had deep themes that held it together. The story of Pontius Pilate and Jesus, with its theme of questioning authority (Caesar) and serving a higher power, thereby undermining a powerful ruler, was a clever way of critiquing Russian leadership without being too on the nose about it. There were many elements to the book: love story, a satire of bureaucracy, freedom vs. authority, and magical entertainment. Overall, a very enjoyable read.

The Penguin edition was excellent. Well priced, good quality text, and beautiful artwork across the cover.

I Highly recommend buying this book.
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Maravilhoso
Reviewed in Brazil on January 22, 2022
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 Edição lindíssima, de ótima qualidade dessa obra que é excelente! As ilustrações e o detalhe nas bordas das paginas deixam o livro ainda mais charmoso. A história já um clássico da literatura é uma das minhas favoritas e essa edição de aniversário fez jus a ela.Tive problemas com a entrega mas a Amazon resolveu de forma rapida.
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Maravilhoso
Reviewed in Brazil on January 22, 2022
Edição lindíssima, de ótima qualidade dessa obra que é excelente! As ilustrações e o detalhe nas bordas das paginas deixam o livro ainda mais charmoso. A história já um clássico da literatura é uma das minhas favoritas e essa edição de aniversário fez jus a ela.Tive problemas com a entrega mas a Amazon resolveu de forma rapida.
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Aliya
5.0 out of 5 stars book
Reviewed in India on January 25, 2024
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so pretty. The penguin classics are my favourite and the picture on the cover was soo elegantly perfect and reletable to the novel. I love woland and Ivan. Azazelleo is so pretty . The novel is well- written, and the characters are all elegantly perfect.
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Catarina Moita
5.0 out of 5 stars Muito satisfeita
Reviewed in Spain on September 1, 2022
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Existem versões deste livro mais baratas mas se for como eu e adora colecionar e investir em clássicos "bonitos" esta é a compra acertada!!!! Para além de ser uma edição especial, a capa tem um design lindo e de ótima qualidade, diferente de qualquer outro livro. Mal posso esperar para começar a lê-lo!
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