Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina first appeared as a complete book in 1878.
The novel had previously been published in installments in the Russian literary journal The Russian Messenger. Publication began in 1875, but a dispute between Tolstoy and the journal’s editor interrupted serialization before the ending appeared there. Tolstoy therefore arranged for the completed work to be issued separately.
Anna Karenina is set largely in nineteenth-century Russian society and follows Anna’s relationships, marriage, and tragic social isolation alongside Konstantin Levin’s search for meaning. It is often paired with War and Peace as Tolstoy’s greatest novel.
A common mix-up is to give 1875, the year serialization began, rather than 1878, the year the complete book was published. The Russian title is usually transliterated as Anna Karenina.