Anna Karenina is a realist novel written by Russian novelist, short story writer, philosopher and playwright Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Leo Tolstoy. Fyodor Dostoyevsky declared it as "flawless as a work of art". His opinion was shared by Vladimir Nabokov who said "the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style" and by William Faulkner who described it as "the best ever written". Anna Karenina is a tragic story of a married aristocrat and her affair with the Count Vronsky. Bachelor Vronsky is eager to marry her if she agrees to leave her husband, but she cannot do it because of her own insecurities and vulnerability to the pressure of Russian social norms. A parallel story within the novel is that of Konstantin Levin, a country landowner who wants to marry Kitty, sister to Dolly and sister-in-law to Anna's brother Oblonsky. The novel explores a diverse range of topics and it is around one thousand pages.
Lev Nikolaevic Tolstoj nasce a Jasnaja Poljana, in Russia, il 9 settembre 1828 da una famiglia di tradizioni aristocratiche, appartenente alla vecchia nobiltà russa.
Questa condizione influenzerà tutta la sua esistenza: da un punto di vista positivo perché avrà opportunità che altri non avranno, ma anche da un punto di vista negativo perché lo distinguerà dagli altri letterati del suo tempo da cui si sentirà spesso escluso.
La madre morirà quando lui avrà solo due anni e dopo