Anna Karenina

Tolstoy's double tragedy: Anna's adulterous love runs to the rails while Levin's search for a life runs toward the land.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Leo Tolstoy

type

Realist novel

era

Russia (1878)

language

Russian

setting

Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the country estates

parts

8 parts

Relative Scale in Novels

Core Principles & Analysis

• Serialized 1875–77 and published in book form in 1878.
• It opens with one of the most famous first sentences in fiction.
• Anna's story begins and ends at a train station.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Anna Karenina