Anna Karenina (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

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Overview

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

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Vladimir Nabokov called Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina “one of the greatest love stories in world literature.” Matthew Arnold claimed it was not so much a work of art as “a piece of life.” Set in imperial Russia, Anna Karenina is a rich and complex meditation on passionate love and disastrous infidelity.

Married to a powerful government minister, Anna Karenina is a beautiful woman who falls deeply in love with a wealthy army officer, the elegant Count Vronsky. Desperate to find truth and meaning in her life, she rashly defies the conventions of Russian society and leaves her husband and son to live with her lover. Condemned and ostracized by her peers and prone to fits of jealousy that alienate Vronsky, Anna finds herself unable to escape an increasingly hopeless situation.

Set against this tragic affair is the story of Konstantin Levin, a melancholy landowner whom Tolstoy based largely on himself. While Anna looks for happiness through love, Levin embarks on his own search for spiritual fulfillment through marriage, family, and hard work. Surrounding these two central plot threads are dozens of characters whom Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together, creating a breathtaking tapestry of nineteenth-century Russian society.

From its famous opening sentence—“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”—to its stunningly tragic conclusion, this enduring tale of marriage and adultery plumbs the very depths of the human soul.

Amy Mandelker, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is the author of Framing Anna Karenina: Tolstoy, the Woman Question, and the Victorian Novel and coeditor of Approaches to Teaching Anna Karenina.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781593080273
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Publication date: 7/1/2003
Pages: 832
Sales rank: 41,082
Series: Barnes & Noble Classics Series
Product dimensions: 5.10 (w) x 7.90 (h) x 2.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Leo Tolstoy

Biography

Count Leo Tolstoy was born in 1828 on the family estate of Yasnaya Polyana, in the Tula province, where he spent most of his early years, together with his several brothers. In 1844 he entered the University of Kazan to read Oriental Languages and later Law, but left before completing a degree. He spent the following years in a round of drinking, gambling and womanizing, until weary of his idle existence he joined an artillery regiment in the Caucasus in 1851.

He took part in the Crimean war and after the defence of Sevastopol wrote The Sevastopol Sketches (1855-6), which established his literary reputation. After leaving the army in 1856 Tolstoy spent some time mixing with the literati in St Petersburg before traveling abroad and then settling at Yasnaya Polyana, where he involved himself in the running of peasant schools and the emancipation of the serfs. His marriage to Sofya Andreyevna Behrs in 1862 marked the beginning of a period of contentment centred around family life; they had thirteen children. Tolstoy managed his vast estates, continued his educational projects, cared for his peasants and wrote both his great novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877).

During the 1870s he underwent a spiritual crisis, the moral and religious ideas that had always dogged him coming to the fore. A Confession (1879–82) marked an outward change in his life and works; he became an extreme rationalist and moralist, and in a series of pamphlets written after 1880 he rejected church and state, indicted the demands of flesh, and denounced private property. His teachings earned him numerous followers in Russia and abroad, and also led finally to his excommunication by the Russian Holy Synod in 1901. In 1910 at the age of eighty-two he fled from home "leaving this worldly life in order to live out my last days in peace and solitude;" he died some days later at the station master's house at Astapovo.

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Books LTD.

1. Also Known As:
  
  Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy (full name)
1. Date of Birth:
  
  September 9, 1828
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Tula Province, Russia
1. Date of Death:
  
  November 20, 1910
2. Place of Death:
  
  Astapovo, Russia

Read an Excerpt

From Amy Mandelker's Introduction to Anna Karenina

The literary fragments by Pushkin that inspired Tolstoy to sit down and begin writing Anna Karenina were sketches for a novel about an adulteress who is ultimately cast off by her lover and society. The plot of adulterous love, the story of a doomed impossible passion, is common in Western European literature and typically creates a narrative that links love and death. Indeed Tolstoy had in his library that most famous nineteenth-century culmination of the literary tradition of adulterous love and death, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Yet Russian literary history had no native tradition comparable to Troubadoran love poetry, the cult of courtly love, the idea of the liebestod, or the novels of adulterous passion that capped the poetic tradition. Despite early sentimental prose accounts of young girls drowning themselves for unrequited love, like Nikolai Karamzin's Poor Liza, Russian literature as it matured in the nineteenth century tended to invert and caricature European prose forms rather than directly imitating them. Indeed in his article "Some Words about War and Peace," Tolstoy insisted that his work was not a novel, pronouncing with characteristic national pride and eccentricity that Russians did not even know how to write novels in the European sense of the word.

Such an announcement of disregard for conventional form in art might seem presumptuous were it premeditated, and were there not precedents for it. But the history of Russian literature since the time of Pushkin not merely affords many examples of such deviations from European forms, but does not offer a single example of the contrary. From Gogol's Dead Souls to Dostoevsky's House of the Dead, in the recent period of Russian literature there is not a single artistic prose work, rising at all above mediocrity, which quite fits into the form of a novel, epic, or story (Bayley, Tolstoy and the Novel, p 64).

It is highly significant, therefore, that when Tolstoy began work on Anna Karenina, he described it as "the first novel I have attempted."

Tolstoy's characterization of Russian literature as resistant to European literary shapes and narrative trajectories is certainly apt. The founding work of the nineteenth-century Russian novelistic tradition was Aleksandr Pushkin's novel in verse Eugene Onegin. The idea of a novel in verse is itself unusual, and Pushkin's experimental form includes the invention of a new verse pattern, the Onegin stanza. Furthermore, he stages a narrative reversal of the liebestod by evacuating his love story of desire and thereby eliminating the fuel that fires the Western European romance. In the case of classic European star-crossed lovers, from Tristan and Isolde to Romeo and Juliet, the impossibility of their union generates a heated desire that only increases in response to obstacles. The lovers desire nothing so much as to perpetuate their longing for one another, a yearning that betrays its metaphysical dimension and shades into death-a death of the body that releases the ardent spirit.

In the earliest drafts of Anna Karenina, the heroine is named for Pushkin's heroine, Tatiana, a naive country girl who, addicted to French novels and infatuated with the literary representation of ruinous love, projects a romantic silhouette onto the novel's eponymous protagonist, Eugene. He not only refuses, rather discourteously, to sexually ravish and ruin the heroine, but he apparently has no desire to do so; instead he turns his disordered impulses against his poet friend, Lensky, whom he eliminates in a duel before his departure for Western Europe. In Onegin's absence, Tatiana peruses the stacks of his personal library to discover that her beloved is an empty cloak, a mere parody, a "paper bullet of the brain." Years later, returning to Russia, Eugene discovers the same young girl who once made love to him in the person of a society grande dame, the wife of a military grandee. But Tatiana has lost her desire for Eugene at the moment he discovers his desire for her; spurned, he rushes from the pages of the novel to seek his death.

It is fairly clear that in taking up the well-used plot of adulterous love in response to Pushkin's sketches, Tolstoy intended to quiz the ethos of love and death that spiritualized into tragedy the adulterous love stories of Western European literature. Initially he sketches his heroine satirically: She is fat, vulgar, and obvious; she chomps on her pearl necklace and flirts openly with her lover in her husband's face. But these omens of overindulged physicality vanish in the final characterizations of Anna Karenina, whose grace, vitality, maternal warmth, and beauty are instead slowly and painfully extinguished over the inexorable course of the novel. It is her lover who becomes coarse: An artistic, sensitive man in the earlier drafts, by the final version he is a dilettante and a poor sportsman, riding his lovely racehorse to death through his own corpulence and clumsiness. He becomes a corporeal "hunk of beefsteak" who runs to fat and loses his hair and teeth. In similar fashion, the husband, a more sympathetic type in the first versions of the novel, becomes physically grotesque in the novel as we read it, with his huge ears, stammer, and unpleasant habit of cracking his knuckles.

Satirical impulses are directed at every other character in the novel: the bon vivant (Anna's brother, Stiva), the sanctimonious religious hypocrite (Countess Lydia Ivanovna), the society flirt (Countess Betsy Tverskaya), the careerist (Karenin). The heroine, Anna, is protected from the broad brushstroke of social critique, but whether she is meant to be portrayed as a victim or a participant in the book's destructive social machinery is the highly debated question the novel puts to us.

The moral transgressions of adultery and the violations of social proprieties as understood by nineteenth-century Russian high society can hardly come under censure by today's reader: Anna Karenina remains as sympathetic and compelling as any heroine in literature. Writers like D. H. Lawrence claim for Anna and her lover the role of sympathetic martyrs, crushed beneath the wheels of an implacably conventional and hypocritical society; but Tolstoy was to be condemned for "putting his finger in the balance" to bring the novel to a moralistic conclusion. Yet Anna's suffering may not be entirely due to her moral transgressions and afflicted conscience, just as her experience of social ostracism and rejection cannot fully account for the growing sense of explosive inner turmoil, psychological conflict, and distress she undergoes.

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ereaderbookworm

Posted March 12, 2011

I Also Recommend:

This is the Garnett Translation

This is a well-formatted edition, so kudos for that, but let's talk translations. This is the same 1901 rendering by Constance Garnett used in most of the e-editions out there. Though familiar (especially for its opening sentence), it is widely criticized for its deficiencies and considered a poor choice among better alternatives. The 1918 Maude translation is far better. It is the one most read in college literature classes. The Norton Critical Edition uses the Maude translation, with some revisions by George Gibian. That edition has not been published for e-readers, but a good NOOK edition of the Maude translation is attached to this review (or search "Anna Karenina Maude"). The 2000 translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky is the one associated with Oprah's Book Club. Oprah selected the novel itself more than a particular translation, but a print edition of the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation was featured on her website, so people think of that one as Oprah's pick. The NOOK edition is attached to this review (or search "Anna Karenina Pevear"). It is debatable which translation is better, the Maude or the Peavear and Volokhonsky. The influence of the translator is second only to the author in shaping the text. The quality of the translation is crucial. Online bookstores should require publishers of translated works to list the translator. Publishers, please identify the translator, not just in the book, but on the website product page!

22 out of 22 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted August 30, 2007

A wonderful love story

I picked up this book when I was browsing in the bookstore for something to entertain me on my long flight overseas. One of my close friends has just recently read the book and highly recommended this classic novel. Although I was a little intimidated by size, I decided to give it a shot. I read nonstop on my 12-hour flight, except to eat. I continued to read it during my vacation and would get so wrapped up in the events that I would have a hard time finding a stopping point. Parts 7 and 8, roughly the last 200 pages, were definitely the best parts of the novel due to some very intense scenes. Anna Karenina is a romantic novel that shows Russian society and Russian countryside through the eyes of two main characters. Anna Karenina is a married woman who falls in love with another man and debates leaving him to become an outcast from society and Konstantin Levin is a landowner who is searches to fulfill his life through strenuous labor and marriage. Tolstoy¿s intricate details and colorful characters weave a wonderful story about passion and life in Russia. Anna Karenina is married to the influential government official, Alexey Androvitch, but becomes entranced by the attractive army officer, Count Alexey Vronsky. She must make the heart wrenching decision to stay in a loveless marriage or to leave her son for the man she loves. She risks becoming an outcast from society and being looked down upon by the people who she calls friends. Konstantin Levin is an affluent landowner who is searching for faith and religion throughout the story. He is desperately in love with Kitty, a princess who has her eyes set elsewhere. Levin¿s conversations allow readers to reflect on their own life and think topics discussed in Russian society however, some of the political discussions were a bit boring at times. Generally I preferred reading about the drama between Anna and Vronsky because I enjoy reading love stories. However, Levin¿s transformation and evolution as the book progressed was very inspiring and made me think about my faith. All in all Tolstoy captures audiences and makes readers feel like they are back in nineteenth century Russia. The numerous characters all play a special role in bringing the book to life and are all connected in some way. Every character is described in such detail that a reader feels like they know the person. His words make readers reflect on themselves and human existence in general. This book brings to life many emotions from love to anger to distress. It is a wonderful tale that still relates to modern society, as we know it today. Don¿t be intimidated by the size, I honestly didn¿t remember flipping the pages because I got engrossed in the storylines and it is a book that you should make the time to read. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and recommend it to anyone who wants to read a novel that will have you devouring one word after the next.

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
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TheQuillPen

Posted July 31, 2009

I Also Recommend:

Another Tolstoy Masterpiece

Having heard that Anna Karenina was a better book than my favorite novel, War and Peace, I began reading it with very high expectations. Literally from the first chapter it did not disappoint and actually had a stronger beginning than Tolstoy's other landmark novel. In the introduction to this edition, the writer compared War and Peace to the Iliad and Anna Karenina to the Oddyssey. In a way this is true. Even though War and Peace provides a picture of human life in personal ways, it does so in a historical, sweeping manner. Anna Karenina, on the other hand, shows the personal lives of a select few characters in a minute, visceral, often gritty way. Although the novel does center around Anna Karenina and her tragic romantic life, it also contains many valuable side-stories, even one that is more tragic.

Although it is impossible to really analyze the novel without giving away key elements of the plot, the few things, among many, that really stood out to me about Anna Karenina were (1) the way Tolstoy made you love certain characters at the beginning and then totally flipped your sympathies upside down (such as the dynamics between Anna and her husband and who you relate to), (2) the way Tolstoy portrayed both the depravity of man and man rising above his situation to heroism through his character's action, and (3)Tolstoy's masterful psychoanalysis.

Although in relativity I felt there were a few flaws that caused Anna Karenina to fall short of War and Peace, they are barely worth noting because it truly still is a masterpiece.

P.S. And to someone who said that Tolstoy is too detailed and that passages of Levin farming are extremely long, I would say that Tolstoy makes every part of this book interesting and unique as he psychologically develops his characters and connects to the reader. (And, no, the grass-cutting sequence is not twenty pages long).

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted January 15, 2009

I'm glad I finished it, but it was hard at times!

I just finished Anna Karenina and I am happy it's done. I really enjoyed the book, for the most part, but I do think about 300 pages could have been edited out. As someone said in a previous comment, it took 20 pages to describe Levin cutting a field of grass. That is a prime example, for me, of things that Tolstoy went on and on about. I understand that this may have had a greater significance during the era in which this book was written, but I had a hard time getting through these passages. Other sections of the book kept me completely enthralled and kept me up late at night to finish them. I will never forget the section in the book when Kitty is having her baby. I was so nervous and felt like I was in the room with them. Also, the last paragraph of that section brought me to tears when Levin describes his feelings for his child. Incredible writing!! Overall, this book was very satisfying and a great read. I'm glad to say I now belong to the "club" of those who have read Anna Karenina.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted March 26, 2004

Mind Numbing

If you like extreme detail about what someone thinks someone else is thinking because of a twitch of an eye, or some other body twitch, this book is for you!

3 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
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emrocks12

Posted November 5, 2008

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I Also Recommend:

Pat me on the back, I finished Anna Karenina.

Although as I was reading this book I could only think of my appreciation for the art of modern-day editing, in retrospect I'm glad to have read every word. The book can seem tedious at times, (especially when Levin takes 20 pages to mow a field), but each section teaches you something about Russian culture, Tolstoy's philosophies and human nature. The book certainly came in waves of fast-paced drama followed by quiet moments and reflections that balance it well.

I highly recommend this for personal reading, but as a book club book I'd have to say no. The chances of everyone finishing in a timely fashion or at all are slim to none, believe me I know!

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted May 15, 2008

Pretty Well Done

Though love stories have never caught my eye, this book seemed like it was more than the cheesy tales that love stories usually are. Two of my favorite characters were the ever-smiling Oblonsky and the hard working Levin. I had my sympathies for Anna, especially because no matter what she did, the consequences were always tragic. Vronsky was a bad egg from the start, the way he cast away Kitty. The size of Anna Karenina is of no consequence since the vocabulary is quite simple to understand. The reason I didn't give it five stars was because Tolstoy has a tendency to ramble on and on 'kind of like Dickens' about issues that seem to have little importance, and he makes sure that you note every movement that the characters. Also, though I enjoyed it, it was a love story and not as enthralling as action books.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Elsie_Love

Posted September 30, 2011

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What I learned from Anna Karenina

Since this book is considered to be one of the *greats* I'm not going to go through with my typical graded review. I mean really, it's Tolstoy people. What could I possibly have to say about a book written by Tolstoy that would be of any value to anyone? Instead, I will give you my thoughts (those are always interesting, right?) pretending I know nothing of the gravity of the book. Consider me a babe in arms, with no knowledge of literary classics (not much of a stretch), no knowledge of Russian history...or any history beyond what I learned in high school (okay, I admit, this is true), and the attention span of a gnat who just ingested a Starbucks double shot.
Above all, try to keep a sense of humor. To do otherwise will only serve to make you hate me in the worst way.
What I learned from reading Anna Karenina:
1. People talked, wrote, and thought in the longest, most convoluted ways. If Tolstoy wrote (I'm speaking only of sentence structure here) the same book today, his editors would be having fits. I'm talking serious, Grand Mal seizures. I certainly didn't mind the long winded, semi colon filled conversations; but considering the last five Literary Agents I spoke to told me that long, complicated, wordy writing was a no-no...I'm thinking he'd be self published for sure.Of course, this is true of all period writing, since styles change to give an accurate portrayal of current times.
2.Details were mega important. If you like a fully detailed scene from every possible angle, this book will rock your socks off. I like details. I also believe that there is such a thing as over kill. Chapters devoted entirely to harvesting fields in Russia fall into the latter category. I like that type of detail to be a page or two at most. I fell asleep a few times while Levin was pontificating about the role of the peasant in Russian society. I know how terrible that sounds. If you're offended by my lack of cooth, please re-read the above preface to this review, as I will not apologize.
3. If you happened to be of any wealth or means (and you were a man), your life was AWESOME. In the upper echelon of Russian society, life was one big party. Even the fake rich (Dolly & Stepan) had nurses, cooks, country houses, land...you name it. Work consisted of going to an office where people came to ask you if you would grant them wishes, etc, and every night you would stay out until one or two in the morning. Dinner parties happened every night of the week, as did the opera, and nobody exchanged much cash.
4. Everyone was given at least three names, which were all interchangeable, depending on mood/whims/relationship and the person speaking. I'm sure there is cultural/period/class significance here. No need to explain. I only wish this held true today. I'd love to be known as: Elizabeth Loan, Elisabetta Burkano Manifesto AND Elsie Love...how cool would that be?
5. The rich, in spite of all their wealth, were pretty miserable. AS a reader who would have fallen into the peasant class, I can't help but feeling these people just needed more to do. In other words, if you can spend entire months in 'spiritual crisis' during the 1800's, you needed some good old fashioned real work! BTW, I find this to remain true today. :)
6. Lastly, Anna, Anna, Anna...what can I say? I loved her and I hated her. The scene where she visits Seryhoza on his birthday brought me to tears; but to jump in front of a train for the lost love of a man? No, I cannot accept that.Wh

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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PrincessNook

Posted February 25, 2011

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Amazing Book

Incredible book...I neglected everyone and everything so I could devour it as fast as I could.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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janalee40

Posted May 29, 2009

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Great Read; Very Intellectually Stimulating

This is a great story. It is very political and spiritual in content. Contains a lot of Russian history during the late 1800s. It is a bit time consuming, but it is definitely worth reading. I took more time reading it to comprehend fully the history and symbolism of the characters and events within the storyline. I fell in love with the character Levin, and despised Anna Karenina by the end of the novel. It is really interesting to follow the characters in their journeys through self identification, exploration, and even destruction.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted January 31, 2004

A Rich and Timeless Tapestry of Characters and Life

A truly rewarding book to read, one which stays with you long after you have read it. The number and complexity of the characters is astounding. The chapter of Levin working in the fields with the common people is unforgettable as well the heartbreaking description of his last visit with his dying brother. Characters attempting to answer timeless questions in the search for personal happiness. Unforgettable!!!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Anonymous

Posted March 22, 2012

Brilliant

Loved this book! Fantastic love story. Comparable to Romeo and Juliet with a little mental disorder added in the mix.
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greyhound_lvr

Posted December 28, 2011

Terrific

Easily the best book that I read this year
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T_R_Quick

Posted July 14, 2011

Give this book a try.

This book follows the life of Anna Karenina. There are many characters to keep track of. The setting of the book is mainly in Russia.
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kellixgrace

Posted June 29, 2011

Love Love Love It.

Tolstoy is amazing.
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Christal_Alexa

Posted June 23, 2011

five star

I just started re-reading Anna Karenina in paperback but want to keep in my nook forever!
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phdmbamom

Posted May 22, 2011

Loved this book!!

I was amazed the plot held up so well to the changing times. The politics of women's rights, classes, and religious skepticism were gently discussed through the plot and the character's inner dialog. Although the book was large, it kept my interest chapter after chapter, after chapter...
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manoftheworld

Posted May 1, 2011

I Also Recommend:

An amazingly epic classic!

I have always been fascinated with classics. I picked up this book and it is amazing. I love the way Tolstoy seamlessly weaves the many characters in this book. It is a dark tale of adultery and its outcomes. At first, having all the characters is confusing, because you don't exactly know who's who. But, nevertheless, i got hooked into the story.
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chaseSA

Posted December 31, 2010

what is with the spoilers?

It would be nice if the overview didn't tell the potential reader what happens to Anna at the end of the book.
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MissMarie_1300

Posted December 8, 2010

Very...interesting.

"Anna Karenina" is a very dramatic book about 19th century aristocrats that have a very dramatic life. And they feel the need to act dramatic too, to make things worse. Leo Tolstoy has a tendency to go into vast detail and overall, you will have a very good sense of what peoples' lives were like back then. Though long and detailed, it was a very good book that I would recommend to anyone that likes to read - A LOT.
I had to read this book for a presentation for one of my classes, in a two week time period. And I have to say, it was tough. There is just so much history, so much meaning, into each chapter that it is difficult to read in that little of a time period. This book truly is a master piece, and I think that only people that read excessively will truly appreciate it.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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This is the Garnett Translation

A wonderful love story

Another Tolstoy Masterpiece

I'm glad I finished it, but it was hard at times!

Mind Numbing

Pat me on the back, I finished Anna Karenina.

Pretty Well Done

What I learned from Anna Karenina

Amazing Book

Great Read; Very Intellectually Stimulating

A Rich and Timeless Tapestry of Characters and Life

Brilliant

Terrific

Give this book a try.

Love Love Love It.

five star

Loved this book!!

An amazingly epic classic!

what is with the spoilers?

Very...interesting.