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

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

What I confidently named the greatest social novel of world literature is in fact a novel against society.

Thomas Mann

Tolstoy's greatness lies in not turning the story into sentimental tragedy… His world is huge and vast, filled with complex family lives and great social events. His characters are well-rounded presences. They have complete passions: a desire for love, but also an inner moral depth.

Malcolm Bradbury

It's so fantastic that it can be read over and over again… I don't know any other writer who is so adept at peopling their pages.

Maggie O'Farrell

Tolstoy is the greatest Russian writer of prose fiction.

Vladimir Nabokov