This Second Norton Critical Edition of Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel is again based on the Louise and Aylmer Maude translation (originally published in 1918; revised with notes in 1939), which has never been surpassed. This volume reprints the 1939 edition, which the editor has revised, making twenty-one textual changes and revising or adding forty-nine footnotes.

"Backgrounds and Sources" includes central passages from the letters of Tolstoy and his correspondents, S. A. Tolstoy’s diaries, and contemporary accounts translated by George Gibian exclusively for this Norton Critical Edition. Together these materials document Tolstoy’s writing process and chronicle Anna Karenina’s reception upon publication during the period 1875–77.

"Criticism" unites Russian and Western interpretations to present the best canonical scholarship on Anna Karenina written between 1877 and 1994. A wide range of perspectives is provided by Fyodor M. Dostoevsky, Nikolai N. Strakhov, Matthew Arnold, M. S. Gromeka, D. S. Merezhkovsky, Boris Eikhenbaum, Henry Gifford and Raymond Williams, George Steiner, Lydia Ginzburg, Eduard Babaev, Gary Saul Morson, Caryl Emerson, Donna Tussing Orwin, and George Gibian.

A Chronology of Tolstoy’s life and an updated Selected Bibliography are also included.