Considered by some to be the greatest novel ever written, this book is Tolstoy's classic tale of love and adultery set against the backdrop of high society in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. A rich and complex masterpiece, the novel charts the disastrous course of a love affair between Anna, a beautiful married woman, and Count Vronsky, a wealthy army officer. Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together the lives of dozens of characters, and in doing so captures...

This Norton Critical Edition includes: The 1852 first book edition, accompanied by Elizabeth Ammons’s preface, note on the text, and explanatory annotations.