War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
Tolstoy's earlier novel, with the same mix of family life and argument, set sixty years before.
Read our takeAnna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy
A woman leaves her husband for a cavalry officer, and a landowner in the country tries to work out what life is for.
- 1877
- Melancholy
- Atmospheric
- plot-driven
- dark
- intimate
About Leo Tolstoy
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeAnna Karenina is married to Alexey Karenin, a senior government official in St Petersburg, and has a young son. On a visit to Moscow she meets Count Alexey Vronsky, a rich cavalry officer, and they fall in love. She leaves her husband and son for him, and society, which forgave far worse in secret, shuts her out. Beside her story runs a second one. Konstantin Levin, a shy landowner, loves Kitty Shcherbatskaya, who first turns him down for Vronsky. He farms, marries, watches his brother die and becomes a father, and keeps asking what his life is for. Leo Tolstoy began the book in March 1873, and it ran in the Moscow magazine the Russian Messenger from 1875 to 1877.[1][2]
The story, in more detail
The idea came from a real death. According to Aylmer Maude, Tolstoy's biographer and translator, a woman named Anna who lived with a neighbouring landowner, Bibikov, threw herself under a train out of jealousy of his attentions to their governess. Tolstoy knew the details and was present at the post-mortem. The death happened the year before he began the novel.[2]
He started it by accident in March 1873. A volume of Alexander Pushkin lay open at a fragment that begins, The guests had arrived at the country house. Tolstoy remarked that this was how a story should begin, plunging straight into things. Someone laughingly suggested he try it, and he sat down and wrote the opening. The first narrative sentence of Anna Karenina is Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house.[2]
The first instalments appeared in the Russian Messenger in the first four monthly numbers of 1875. More followed in 1876 and early 1877. Then the editor, Mikhail Katkov, objected to the last part, where Levin mocks the newspapers for whipping up enthusiasm for Russian volunteers in the Serbian war. Tolstoy refused to change a word and issued the last part separately as a book. Katkov wound up the story in his May number with a short summary.[2]
The full plot
Stepan Oblonsky, called Stiva, has had an affair with the family's French governess, and his wife, Dolly, has found out. His sister, Anna Karenina, comes from St Petersburg to make peace between them. At the Moscow station she meets Count Vronsky, who is there to collect his mother. A railway guard is run over by a train, and Anna calls it an omen of evil. She persuades Dolly to forgive Stiva.[1]
Dolly's young sister Kitty turns down Konstantin Levin because she expects Vronsky to propose. At a ball Vronsky dances the mazurka with Anna instead, and Kitty sees at once what has happened. Anna goes home to St Petersburg, and Vronsky follows her on the same train. Back in the city, she notices for the first time how her husband's ears stick out. Kitty falls ill and is sent to a German spa, and Levin goes back to his estate.[1]
Anna and Vronsky become lovers, and she becomes pregnant. At an officers' steeplechase Vronsky's mare, Frou-Frou, falls and has to be shot, and Anna's alarm gives her away. Driving home, she tells her husband that she loves Vronsky and is his mistress. Karenin decides to keep up appearances. Meanwhile Levin mows hay with his peasants, meets Kitty again, and proposes by writing the first letters of words in chalk on a card table. She understands, and they marry.[1]
Anna nearly dies of fever after giving birth to Vronsky's daughter. At her bedside Karenin forgives both of them. Vronsky, humiliated, shoots himself but survives. Anna recovers, leaves her husband and son without a divorce, and goes to Italy with Vronsky. When they come back to Russia she is shut out of society. She slips into her old house to see her son, Seryozha, on his birthday, and is insulted in public at the opera.[1]
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Anna and Vronsky live on his country estate and then in Moscow, waiting for a divorce that does not come. Karenin, now guided by the pious Countess Lidia Ivanovna, refuses it after a French clairvoyant named Landau speaks in a trance. Anna grows jealous and afraid of losing Vronsky, and takes morphine to sleep. After a quarrel she drives to the station, takes a train to Obiralovka, and throws herself under a goods train. Her last words are Lord, forgive me all.
Vronsky, shattered, leaves for the Serbian war with a squadron of volunteers he has paid for himself. Levin's brother Nikolay has died, and Kitty has given birth to a son, Mitya. Levin has been so close to suicide that he hid a cord and stopped carrying a gun. A peasant's remark that a neighbour lives for his soul sets him thinking. In the last chapter Levin decides that his life now has the meaning of goodness, which he has the power to put into it.
Themes and analysis
Two stories that barely touch
Anna and Levin do not meet until Part Seven, when Stiva takes Levin to her house in Moscow. Levin has already seen her portrait, painted in Italy by the artist Mihailov, and he is charmed by her. Otherwise the two stories run side by side. Anna's goes from Moscow to St Petersburg to Italy and back. Levin's stays mostly on his estate, with his peasants, his brothers and his crops.
Aylmer Maude thought Levin was closer to Tolstoy than any of his other characters. Tolstoy made him simple, Maude wrote, to get a sharper contrast with the high society of Moscow and St Petersburg. Maude also noted that outside Russia Anna Karenina was perhaps more popular than War and Peace. The book is shorter, its arguments fit better into the story, and it is shaped more like the novels English readers knew.
The French governess, the Paris dresses and the Paris clairvoyant
The novel's first scandal is French. Stiva Oblonsky's affair is with a French girl who had been governess to his children. In the second chapter he remembers her roguish black eyes and her smile, and he is sorry mostly that he was found out. Paris then keeps appearing in the book as the place where fashion comes from. Kitty is married in a gown from Paris. Anna dresses for the opera in a low-necked gown of silk and velvet that she had made in Paris, on the night society humiliates her.
The strangest Paris character decides Anna's fate. Jules Landau, a clairvoyant, was a shop assistant in Paris who fell asleep in a doctor's waiting room and began giving advice to the patients. A Russian family brought him to St Petersburg, and a countess adopted him. Karenin, under the influence of Countess Lidia Ivanovna, consults him about Anna's divorce. Landau speaks in French in a real or pretended trance. The next day Karenin sends his final answer, a refusal, and Stiva understands that it rests on what the Frenchman said.
Even Vronsky's hobby looks to France. In Italy he takes up painting, and of all the styles he likes the French best, graceful and effective. He paints Anna in Italian costume in that style. Then he sees the portrait the Russian painter Mihailov makes of her and gives up his own.
Read first in Paris
Ivan Turgenev, the Russian novelist who lived in France, disliked the opening. On 14 March 1875 he wrote from Paris that Tolstoy had, as they said there, fait fausse route, taken the wrong road. He complained that the book smelled of Moscow, holy oil and old maids. He did admire three scenes, the steeplechase, the mowing and the hunt.
Hachette published the first French translation in Paris in 1885, and a second edition followed in 1886. Many readers outside Russia met the book in French first. The English critic Matthew Arnold wrote the essay that introduced Anna Karenina to English readers from the French translation. He added that the novel perhaps went better into French than into English. Aylmer Maude disagreed. In French, he pointed out, even the plainest Russian characters have to speak French, and the contrast with the Frenchified court set disappears.
Quotes from Anna Karenina
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
I love him, I am his mistress; I can't bear you; I'm afraid of you, and I hate you.... You can do what you like to me.
And the light by which she had read the book filled with troubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and evil, flared up more brightly than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in darkness, flickered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever.
but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it.
Why we recommend it
A love story with consequences
Anna's affair costs her her son, her friends and her place in the world, and the book follows every step of the cost.
Two novels in one
Levin's farming, marriage and search for faith balance Anna's story, and many readers find his half the more surprising.
Scenes people remember
The ball, the steeplechase, the mowing, the proposal in chalk, the birth of Levin's son and the last train journey.
Paris at the edges
A French governess starts the trouble, Paris gowns mark the key evenings, and a former Paris shop assistant decides the divorce.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Anna Karenina
Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, a beautiful, warm St Petersburg wife and mother who falls in love with Count Vronsky.
Count Alexey Vronsky
A rich, handsome cavalry officer who courts Kitty for fun, falls seriously in love with Anna, and gives up his career for her.
Konstantin Levin
A shy, stubborn landowner who loves Kitty, works beside his peasants, and spends the book asking what life is for.
Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin
Anna's husband, a powerful and correct St Petersburg official who cannot bear scenes and is lost when his marriage breaks.
Dolly Oblonskaya
Darya Alexandrovna, Stiva's wife, worn out by children and money worries, who forgives him and later visits Anna in the country.
Seryozha
Anna and Karenin's young son, told that his mother is dead, who never stops expecting to see her.
Countess Lidia Ivanovna
A pious St Petersburg lady who takes over Karenin's household and brings the clairvoyant Landau into his life.
Nikolay Levin
Levin's elder brother, a drinker and radical, whose slow death in a provincial hotel is one of the book's hardest chapters.
Jules Landau
A former Paris shop assistant turned clairvoyant, adopted by a countess, whose trance decides Karenin against the divorce.
Also in the book
Kitty Shcherbatskaya
Dolly's youngest sister, eighteen, who refuses Levin for Vronsky, is humiliated, recovers, and marries Levin.
Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky
Anna's cheerful, unfaithful brother, called Stiva, loved by everyone and always short of money.
Bring it to book club
- Anna calls the guard's death an omen of evil in Part One. How does the railway follow her through the book?
- Karenin forgives Anna at her bedside and later refuses the divorce. Is he cruel, or trapped?
- Why does society forgive Stiva's affair and not Anna's?
- What does Levin learn from mowing with his peasants?
- The novel ends with Levin, not Anna. What does the last part add?
Timeline
March 1873
Leo Tolstoy begins the novel after reading the opening of a Pushkin fragment.
1875
The first chapters appear in the first four monthly numbers of the Russian Messenger.
14 March 1875
Ivan Turgenev writes from Paris that Tolstoy has taken the wrong road.
1877
The editor, Mikhail Katkov, objects to the last part. Tolstoy issues it separately as a book.
1885
Hachette publishes the first French translation, Anna Karénine, in Paris.
1919
George W. Jacobs of Philadelphia publishes an illustrated edition of the Garnett translation.
2013
At the 85th Academy Awards, the film of Anna Karenina wins Costume Design for Jacqueline Durran.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- 1877
Paperback
- Paperback
- Hachette
- 1885
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- George W. Jacobs & Company
- 1919
- Constance Garnett
- Paperback
- Barnes & Noble Classics
- 2003
- 9781593080273
- Constance Garnett
Ebook
- Ebook
- Project Gutenberg
- Constance Garnett
Reader reviews
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Read our takeAnna Karenina: frequently asked questions
What is Anna Karenina about?
A married St Petersburg woman, Anna Karenina, who leaves her husband and son for Count Vronsky and is shut out by society. A second story follows Konstantin Levin, a landowner who marries Kitty Shcherbatskaya and searches for a reason to live.
What does the first line mean?
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The next sentence shows one unhappy family at once: the Oblonskys, whose household is in confusion because Stiva has had an affair with the governess.
Was Anna Karenina based on a real woman?
Partly. Aylmer Maude says a woman named Anna, who lived with a neighbouring landowner, threw herself under a train out of jealousy the year before Tolstoy started the book. Tolstoy knew the details and attended the post-mortem.
How does Anna Karenina end?
Anna, jealous and taking morphine, throws herself under a train at Obiralovka station. Vronsky goes to fight in the Serbian war. The last part belongs to Levin, who finds a kind of faith and decides his life now has a meaning of goodness.
Is there a Paris connection?
Yes. The trouble starts with an affair with a French governess. Kitty's wedding gown and Anna's opera gown come from Paris. A former Paris shop assistant turned clairvoyant, Landau, decides Karenin against the divorce. Hachette published the first French translation in Paris in 1885.
Which translation is quoted here?
Constance Garnett's, checked against a 1919 printing. In 1911 Aylmer Maude called Garnett's the best English version of the novel, though he disliked some of her choices.
Why did the last part come out separately?
The magazine's editor, Mikhail Katkov, objected to Levin's mockery of the press campaign for Russian volunteers in the Serbian war. Tolstoy would not accept changes, so he published the last part himself as a book in 1877.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Anna Karenina, its publication, and its place in literary history.
3Anna Karenina: A Novel, translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett, illustrated by Helen Mason Grose — Internet Archive scan
NovelGeorge W. Jacobs & Company, Philadelphia, 1919Used forA 1919 printing of the Garnett translation, used to check each quotation against a printed edition.
4Anna Karénine, roman traduit du russe (Paris: Hachette, 1885) — catalogue record
Official recordBibliothèque nationale de France, 1885Used forCatalogue record for the first French translation, Paris, 1885.
5The 85th Academy Awards (2013) — Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
WebsiteAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesUsed forAnna Karenina's award for Costume Design, Jacqueline Durran, and its three other nominations.
6Anna Karenina (Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003), translated by Constance Garnett, introduction and notes by Amy Mandelker — Open Library edition record OL3696013M
WebsiteOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forEdition record confirming ISBN 9781593080273: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003, Garnett translation, introduction by Amy Mandelker, 803 pages.
7Anna Karenina
NovelLeo Tolstoy, 1877Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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