Novel
Anna Karenina
Анна Каренина
Leo Tolstoy · 1878
Opening lines
Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ru.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Anna Karenina, wife of a senior official in Saint Petersburg twenty years her elder, comes to Moscow to reconcile her brother Stiva Oblonsky with his wife Dolly, whom he has deceived. At the station, she meets Count Vronsky, an officer who is courting young Kitty, whom Levin, a landowner, hopes to marry. A passion that is not hidden for long arises between Anna and Vronsky, while Levin, far from the city, seeks his path between working the land and faith.
Context
The author began the book in 1873 and worked on it until 1877. The novel appeared in instalments from 1875 to 1877 in Russky vestnik; the review refused to publish the last part, whose ideas displeased its editors. The first complete edition in volume form came out in 1878. The story follows two couples in parallel, between the high society of Petersburg and Moscow and the countryside, where Levin, whom the author regarded as his double, looks after his estate and searches for a meaning to his life.
Who it is for
A long novel, in eight parts, in which two plots advance in parallel, Anna's and Levin's, between the city and the countryside.
Prizes and reception
Counted among the greatest works of world literature; several French translations are available in paperback.
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