The premiere example of nineteenth-century realism stands today as a masterful examination of hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, marriage and progress. This tragic story centers on a young, married aristocratic woman who embarks on an affair to escape an unhappy marriage. Along the way, a large cast of characters explore and debate the social mores of pre-Revolutionary Russia. Each of the novel’s eight sections contains variations in tone and style, including stream-of-consciousness passages that prefigure the modernist writers of the 20th century. William Faulkner thought that “Anna Karénina” was the best novel ever written, and the book has inspired countless writers and innovators from Joyce to Woolf to Nabokov.