Creating Anna Karenina : Tolstoy and the birth of literature's most enigmatic heroine
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-377) and index.

"The story behind the origins of Anna Karenina and the turbulent life and times of Leo Tolstoy"--,Provided by publisher.

Anna Karenina is one of the most nuanced characters in world literature. Readers often assume that Tolstoy, a nobleman-turned-mystic would write himself into the principled Levin. But in truth, Anna's fateful suicide is the road that Tolstoy nearly traveled himself. Blaisdell unravels Tolstoy's family, literary, and day-to-day life during the period that he conceived, drafted, abandoned, and revised Anna Karenina. In the process, we see where Tolstoy's life and his art intersect in obvious and unobvious ways. -- adapted from jacket