"Anna Karenina" is the best novel about a woman written in the 19th century. The idea for a "novel of contemporary life" came to Leo Tolstoy back in 1870. "Yesterday evening he told me," Sofia Andreyevna Tolstaya noted in her diary on February 24, 1870, "that he had envisioned a type of woman, married, from high society, who had lost herself." The first chapters of "Anna Karenina" saw the light of day in 1875 in the journal "The Russian Messenger": Tolstoy decided to present them to the public before the manuscript was completed in its entirety. The publication of the novel continued for three years. The success exceeded all expectations. As one of Tolstoy's contemporaries wrote, "every chapter of 'Anna Karenina' stirred up all of society, and there was no end to the talk, enthusiasm, gossip, and arguments, as if the matter concerned an issue personally close to everyone." According to Fyodor Dostoevsky, "Anna Karenina" struck readers "not only with the everyday nature of its content but also with its tremendous psychological development of the human soul, its terrifying depth and power."
The novel is published with illustrations by the outstanding 20th-century Russian artist Alexander Samokhvalov; the edition includes an article by St. Petersburg State University professor Andrey Stepanov.
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Illustrations: Alexander Samokhvalov
Pages: 832 (offset). Hardcover
Dimensions: 140x210 mm
Series: Russian Literature. Big Books
