Anna Karenina

Described by William Faulkner as the best novel ever written and by Fyodor Dostoevsky as “flawless,” Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and thereby exposes herself to the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness.

Set in

• ★
  Russian Empire · Russia
  ★ primary
• ★
  Moscow · Russia

  Oblonsky household, society scenes
  ★ primary
• St. Petersburg · Russia

  Anna and Vronsky social world
• Yasnaya Polyana · Russia

  Real-life model for Levin's country estate; Tolstoy's own family estate, mapped onto Levin's autobiographical rural scen
• Moscow Zoological Gardens · Russia

  Skating rink where Levin searches for and reunites with Kitty
• English Club, Moscow · Russia

  Historic Moscow gentlemen's club (Tverskaya Street) frequented by Oblonsky and Levin
• Krasnoye Selo · Russia

  Site of the officers' steeplechase where Vronsky's horse Frou-Frou falls