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...