full title · Anna Karenina author · Lev (Leo) Nikolaevich
Tolstoy type of work · Novel genre · Novel of ideas;
psychological novel; tragedy language · Russian time and place
written · 1873–1877; the estate of Yasnaya Polyana, near Moscow
date of first publication · 1873–1877 (serial publication)
publisher · M. N. Katkov narrator · Tolstoy uses an unnamed,
omniscient, detached, third-person narrator point of view · The
nameless narrator of the novel presents both facts and inner
thoughts of characters that no single character in the plot
could know. Chiefly with regard to Anna and Levin, but
occasionally to others as well, the narrator describes
characters’ states of mind, feelings, and attitudes. For a
lengthy section at the end of Part Seven, the narrator enters
directly into Anna’s mind. tone · As in many realist novels of
the same time period, the narrator maintains an impersonal but
sympathetic tone, focusing on both facts and feelings but
without authorial commentaries on the fates of characters.
Unlike