Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger. Tolstoy clashed with its editor Mikhail Katkov over issues that arose in the final installment; therefore the novel's first complete appearance was in book form. Widely regarded as a pinnacle in realist fiction Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina his first true novel when he came to consider War and Peace to be more than a novel. The character of Anna was likely inspired in part by Maria Hartung the elder daughter of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. Soon after meeting her at dinner Tolstoy began reading Pushkin's prose and once had a fleeting daydream of "a bare exquisite aristocratic elbow " which proved to be the first intimation of Anna's character.
