Anna Karenina

In 1872, the mistress of a neighboring landowner threw herself under a train at a station near Tolstoy's home. This event provided Tolstoy with the inspiration he needed to compose what many consider to be the greatest novel ever written. In writing Anna Karenina, he shifted away from the vast historical scope of War and Peace to tell, with extraordinary insight, the story of an aristocratic woman who brings ruin upon herself. Anna's tragedy is interwoven with the courtship and marriage of Kitty and Levin, as well as the lives of many other characters. Rich in incident and powerful in characterization, the novel also expresses Tolstoy's own moral vision. "The correct way of putting the question is the artist's duty," Chekhov once insisted, and Anna Karenina was the work he chose to illustrate this point. It solves no problem, but it is deeply satisfying because all the questions are posed correctly.