Anna Karenina, considered by many critics to be Tolstoy’s finest achievement, is one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century. Tolstoy imbues the simple tale of a love affair with rich portraits of Russian high society, politics, and religion.
As the book opens, Prince Stephen Oblonsky, known as Stiva, is arguing with his wife, Dolly: he has had an affair with their children’s governess, and she is threatening to leave him. He is happy that his sister, Anna Karenina, will be coming the next day to visit and smooth things over between himself and Dolly. Anna is married to a distinguished official in St. Petersburg, and moves in the highest circles of Russian Society with the reputation of a charming woman.
That same day, Oblonsky runs into his friend Constantine Levin, who has just arrived from his country estate. Levin is in town to see Oblonsky’s sister-in-law, Kitty Shcherbatskaya, for Levin is rather smitten with the eighteen-year-old girl. Oblonsky suggests a meeting with Levin later that evening at the park where Kitty ice-skates. 
I/ DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK
The novel was published by Penguin Readers Publishing
( The Whole Edition ) by Rosemary Edmonds
The first simplified edition was published in 1992
This edition was published in 2001
The type of the book is novel.
The author of the book is Count Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy.
Count Leo Nikolayevich TOLSTOY: Count Leo Tolstoy( born sept.9,1828 and died nov.22,1910) was Russia’s greatest novelist and one of its most influential moral philosophers.He was born near Moscow at Yasnaya Polyanai, or “Clear Glade” the estate where he was to spend most of his life.At the age of nine he became an orphan and thereafter he was brought up by aunts.In 1847 he left the University of Kazan to reform his estate, but he was unprepared for the task and moved to Moscow.Five years later, Tolstoy volunteered for the army in the Caucasus,Crimea; he participated in the defense of Sevastopol and was hailed as a rising literary star for his fictionalized Childhood, Youth and the Sevastopol Sketches,which already contained some of the main features of his mature work–psychological analysis of unprecendented detail, and a unglamorous actions performed by ordinary men.
