Monday, October 09, 2006

eBook Today : Anna Karenina


Anna Karenina
By: Tolstoy, Leo Nikoleyevich; Garnett, Constance(trans.)
Published By: Joshua James Press
Anna Karenina is a novel by Leo Tolstoy that was first published in 1877. The novel initially appeared serially in the periodical Ruskii Vestnik ("Russian Messenger"), but Tolstoy clashed with its editor Mikhail Katkov over issues that arose in the final installment. Consequently, the novel's first complete appearance was in book form.

Widely regarded as a pinnacle in realist fiction, Tolstoy considered this book his first true novel. It is believed that the character of Anna was inspired by Maria Hartung (1832–1919), the elder daughter of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. Soon after meeting her at dinner, Tolstoy started reading Pushkin's prose and once had a fleeting daydream of "a bare exquisite aristocratic elbow", which proved to be the first intimation of Anna's character.

Although most Russian critics panned the novel upon its first publication as a "trifling romance of high life", Fyodor Dostoevsky declared it to be "flawless as a work of art". His opinion is seconded by Vladimir Nabokov, who especially admired "the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style" and the motif of moving train, which is subtly introduced in the first chapters (the kids playing with a toy train) and inexorably developed in subsequent chapters (Anna's nightmare dream), thus heralding the novel's majestic finale.