Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina tells the tragic story of the titular character who, despite being married, falls in love with a dashing army officer, Count Vronsky, and her struggle to escape a loveless marriage to find peace and fulfilment. The story also follows the lives of other characters parallel to Anna’s, such as Konstantin Levin, a landowner who is based, to an extent, on Tolstoy himself; Kitty, an eighteen-year-old debutante in love with Vronsky; and Stiva Oblonsky, Anna’s brother who cheats on his devoted wife. A seminal work about a passionate woman’s revolt against society to follow her heart, Anna Karenina also explores the changing social structure in Russia in the late nineteenth century.