One of the greatest love stories in world literature.Vladimir Nabokov Anna Karenina is a perfect work of art. This novel contains a humane message that has not yet been heeded in Europe and that is much needed by the people of the western world.Fyodor Dostoevsky The truth is we are not to take Anna Karenina as a work of art we are to take it as a piece of life.Matthew Arnold Although love and infidelity are a major themes of Leo Tolstoys epic Russian novel Anna Karenina 1877 there is a startling scope of philosophical and theological insight within the pages of this monumental work. The pinnacle of the realist novel the commonplace lives and frustrations of the characters within Anna Karenina are woven together in parallel subtexts that ask difficult questions.