Anna Karenina

First published in book form in 1878. Many authors consider Anna Karenina the greatest work of literature ever, and Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. Anna Karenina is the tragic story of Countess Anna Karenina, a married noblewoman and socialite, and her affair with the affluent Count Vronsky. The story starts when she arrives in the midst of a family broken up by her brother's unbridled womanizing—something that prefigures her own later situation, though she would experience less tolerance by others.