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Described by William Faulkner as the best novel ever written and by Fyodor Dostoevsky as "flawless," Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky.
Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and thereby exposes herself to the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (1/8/2026)
...e area during WWII. It's not too bad for a self-published book, but moves along rather slowly. On New Year's Day I started reading a chapter a day of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy as part of Nick Senger's Chapter-a-Day Read Along. It's 365 chapters so I hope I stick with it. Also reading My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray & Lau...
-Lana_Maskus
What are you reading this week? (7/31/2025)
This week I am continuing to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. (I imagine I will be continuing it for a few more weeks :slight_smile: I am also re-reading Jason Stanley's book, How Fascism Works: The Politics of...
-Mark_H
What are you reading this week? (7/24/2025)
I have three books going: Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain by Rebecca Solnit Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
-Mark_H
"I finally finished Anna Karenina recently, in a translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I think I can say without controversy that it's a great book." —The New York Times Book Review
This information about Anna Karenina was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Count Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia. Orphaned at nine, he was brought up by an elderly aunt and educated by French tutors until he matriculated at Kazan University in 1844. In 1847, he gave up his studies and, after several aimless years, volunteered for military duty in the army, serving as a junior officer in the Crimean War before retiring in 1857. In 1862, Tolstoy married Sophie Behrs, a marriage that was to become, for him, bitterly unhappy. His diary, started in 1847, was used for self-study and self-criticism; it served as the source from which he drew much of the material that appeared not only in his great novels War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), but also in his shorter works. Seeking religious justification for his life, Tolstoy evolved a new Christianity based upon his own interpretation of the Gospels. Yasnaya Polyana became a mecca for his many converts At the age of eighty-two, while away from home, the writer suffered a break down in his health in Astapovo, Riazan, and he died there on November 20, 1910.
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