Synopses & Reviews
They present a wide spectrum of comic and serious themes and a variety of techniques. (His short novels, available in another Norton volume, by Chekhov, have been omitted.) Two of the stories have been translated for this edition by Professor Matlaw; the other translations, by Constance Garnett, Ivy Litvinov, and Marian Fell, have been revised in accordance with contemporary usage. Footnotes have been supplied wherever necessary to explain peculiarities of Russian life and the historical era in which Chekhov lived and wrote. "Backgrounds" includes a rich selection of Chekhov's letters, in new translations by Professor Matlaw, and Gorky's celebrated essay on Chekhov, translated by Ivy Litvinov. The critical essays offer general views of Chekhov's art and achievement and detailed analyses of particular stories. The critics are D. S. Mirsky, A. B. Derman (whose essay has been translated from the Russian especially for this edition), Renato Poggioli, Gleb Struve, Donald Rayfield, Karl Kramer, Virginia Llewellyn Smith, and Nils Ake Nilsson. A Selected Bibliography directs readers to resources for further study.
Synopsis
The thirty-four stories in this volume span Chekhov's creative career.
About the Author
Anton Chekhov was born on January 29, 1860 in Taganrog, Russia. He graduated from the University of Moscow in 1884. Chekhov died of tuberculosis in Germany on July 14, 1904, shortly after his marriage to actress Olga Knipper, and was buried in Moscow.Ralph E. Matlaw was Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Chicago. He was the author of "The Brothers Karamazov": Novelistic Technique and translated and edited Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and The Grand Inquisitor, Odoevsky's Russian Nights, and Grigoryev's Moral and Literary Wanderings. He also edited Tolstoy: A Collection of Critical Essays; Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, and Dobrolyubov: Selected Criticism; and the Norton Critical Editions of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons and Anton Chekhov's Short Stories.
Table of Contents
Chameleon -- Oysters -- A living chronology -- The huntsman -- Misery -- The requiem -- Anyuta -- Agatha -- Grisha -- A gentleman friend -- The chorus girl -- Dreams -- Vanka -- At home -- The siren's song -- Sleepy -- The grasshopper -- In exile -- Rothschild's fiddle -- The student -- The teacher of literature -- Whitebrow -- Anna on the neck -- The house with the mansard -- The pecheneg -- A journey by cart -- The man in a case -- Gooseberries -- About love -- A doctor's visit -- The darling -- The lady with the dog -- The bishop -- The betrothed.