39 h 50 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 39 h 50 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when the love you want threatens the life you are expected to lead?
Anna Karenina comes to Moscow to help mend her brother Stiva’s broken marriage. Then she meets Count Alexei Vronsky, and her own life begins to shift. A wife and mother in Petersburg high society, Anna faces a passion that clashes with duty, family, and the judgment of those around her.
Alongside Anna’s story, Leo Tolstoy follows Konstantin Levin, a shy landowner searching for love and a reason to live. His feelings for Kitty Shcherbatskaya and his work in the countryside open another path through the novel’s questions. Between drawing rooms and country estates, both stories ask what happiness demands—and what people owe one another.
What you’ll discover
- Love under judgment Follow Anna and Vronsky as desire meets the hard limits of social acceptance.
- A household in crisis Meet Dolly and Stiva, whose troubled marriage brings betrayal and forgiveness into sharp focus.
- Meaning in daily work Join Levin among the country estates as he questions what makes life worth living.
- A society of contrasts Move between Moscow drawing rooms, railway stations, horse races, and the labor of rural life.
- People without easy answers Enter different minds as Tolstoy explores love, duty, and the quiet struggles inside a marriage.
Who will love it
Readers who love family dramas, tangled romances and sharp portraits of society will find a home here. It suits anyone curious about Russian country life, faith and meaning, or the ways love tests a marriage.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A household breaks over broken trust
- Kitty mistakes attention for lasting love
- Anna changes the room around her
- A public reaction forces the truth
- Forgiveness cannot settle every wound
- Levin learns love through daily care
- Isolation turns love into a prison
- Small details reveal whole inner worlds
- Ordinary choices give life its shape
Who’s who
- Anna KareninaA graceful, intelligent wife and mother in Petersburg who longs for a life that feels fully alive, and risks everything to have it.
- Count Alexey VronskyA rich, handsome officer who pursues Anna with growing devotion and wants love without giving up his freedom.
- Alexey Alexandrovitch KareninAnna's husband, a senior official who lives by rules and duty and fears the scorn of society.
- Konstantin LevinA shy, honest landowner who loves Kitty, works his land and searches hard for the meaning of life.
- Kitty ShtcherbatskayaA warm young princess who must learn the difference between flattery and true love.
- Stepan Oblonsky (Stiva)Anna's charming, careless brother who loves pleasure and cannot imagine that his small sins hurt anyone.
- Darya Alexandrovna (Dolly)Stiva's patient wife and Kitty's sister, who wants to protect her children and her pride.
- SeryozhaAnna's young son, a thoughtful boy who loves his mother and is kept from her.
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy · 1875
A husband wakes on his study sofa while his wife hides in her room and the household holds its breath.
ChallengingOver 20 hours to readEnglish
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In short
What do you do when your marriage breaks apart before breakfast and the whole house knows it? Prince Stepan Oblonsky, called Stiva, wakes on his study sofa.
Anna Karenina at a glance
- Reading time
- About 22 h 45 min18 h 5 min fast, 27 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 325,000 words35 chapters
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1875by Leo Tolstoy
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A household breaks apart over one smile
The novel opens in uproar in the Oblonsky house in Moscow. Dolly has discovered that her husband has been having an affair with their former French governess. She keeps to her room, the cook walks out, and the children run wild.
Stiva wakes on the leather sofa of his study. What stings him most is not the affair but the foolish smile that crept onto his face when Dolly confronted him. He pities everyone, yet he cannot honestly regret what he did. Then the day sweeps him along, and everyone he meets is glad to see him.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1875
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 26 h 0 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/anna-karenina.
Tolstoy, L. (2026). Anna Karenina. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/anna-karenina (Original work published 1875)
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/anna-karenina.
@book{tolstoy2026anna,
author = {Tolstoy, Leo},
title = {Anna Karenina},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/anna-karenina},
note = {First published 1875}
}
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What is Anna Karenina about?
It follows Anna, a married woman in Russian high society who falls in love with an officer, Vronsky, and Levin, a landowner who searches for love and meaning. Their stories run side by side and ask how to live honestly.
Who are Levin and Kitty in Anna Karenina?
Konstantin Levin is a shy country landowner, and Kitty is the young princess he loves. Their courtship, marriage and daily life form the second main story, which shows a different path from Anna's.
When was Anna Karenina written and is it a true story?
Tolstoy wrote it in the 1870s and it first appeared in installments. It is a work of fiction, although it draws on real Russian society, farming and politics of its time.
The author
Leo Tolstoy
1828–1910 · Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian author born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, where he lived for much of his life. He wrote novels, stories, and essays. War and Peace appeared in 1865–1869 and Anna Karenina in 1875–1877. He died in 1910 at Astapovo, Russia.
More by Leo Tolstoy
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