"Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds with relentless force as Anna rejects her passionless marriage to an aging government official and must endure the hypocrisies of society. Against a vast and richly textured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven major characters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts of city and country life and all the variations on love and family happiness." "This is the first new English translation of Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece to appear in forty years. While previous versions have softened the robust, and sometimes shocking, quality of Tolstoy's writing, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have produced an accurate translation to enable readers to hear and respond to Tolstoy's powerful voice."--BOOK JACKET.