Which Leo Tolstoy novel opens with the sentence “All happy families are alike”?

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina opens with the sentence “All happy families are alike.”

The complete opening is usually translated as: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It introduces the novel’s sustained examination of marriage, family life, social judgment, and private suffering. The sentence is one of the most frequently quoted openings in world literature.

The novel then begins with a family crisis involving the Oblonsky household, before Anna arrives in Moscow and becomes connected to the broader network of characters. The opening therefore moves from a general observation about families into a specific domestic conflict.

Different English translations vary slightly in wording, including choices such as “happy families are all alike.” The novel identification remains unambiguous. The line belongs to Anna Karenina, not War and Peace, whose opening instead introduces a French-speaking aristocratic salon during the Napoleonic era.