Anton Chekhov

Raymond Carver called Anton Chekhov "the greatest short story writer who has ever lived." This unequivocal verdict on Chekhov's genius has been echoed many times by writers as diverse as Katherine Mansfield, Somerset Maugham, John Cheever and Tobias Wolf. While his popularity as a playwright has sometimes overshadowed his achievements in prose, the importance of Chekhov's stories is now recognized by readers as well as by fellow authors. Their themes--alienation, the absurdity and tragedy of hum an existence--have as much relevance today as when they were written, and these superb new translations capture their modernist spirit. Elusive and subtle, spare and unadorned, the stories in this selection are among Chekhov's most poignant and lyric al. The book includes well-known pieces such as "The Lady with the Little Dog," as well as less familiar work like "Gusev," inspired by Chekhov's travels in the Far East, and "Rothschild's Violin," a haunting and darkly humorous tale about death and loss. The stories are arranged chronologically to show the evolution of Chekhov's art. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume r eflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A schoolteacher in a provincial town falls in love with and marries a young local woman. He thinks he's found a bliss only described in novels. But before long, his sharp points of bliss become blurred. The loss of ideals and poverty of actual experi ence are the themes of these stories. Chekhov's Russians, at the close of the 19th century are trapped in a prison of frustration, which he depicts with laconic power.

The first of Chekhov's works to be published in a serious literary journal, `The Steppe', with its masterly account of a spectacular thunderstorm, signifies his maturation as a writer of short stories. While the majority of his tales focus on the pri vileged classes, this selection shows that Chekhov never forgot his origins as the son of a failed provincial grocer, and characters as varied as the brutal soldier in `Gusev', the downtrodden old constable in `On Official Business', and the bemused peasants in `New Villa' testify to the power and flexibility of his art.

Writing towards the close of the nineteenth century, Chekhov - himself a country doctor - recorded in his fiction the symptoms of a diseased society. The seven stories collected here are a bleakly savage indictment of a society paralysed by spiritual malaise, and morbidly conscious of evils which can neither be killed nor cured. This volume also contains an Introduction by Ronald Hingley.

A practising doctor, Chekhov was an acute observer of Russian society's moral, as well as physical sickness. Joining The Russian Master, Ward Number Six, and A Woman's Kingdom in the World's Classics series, this collection, including 'The Party', 'A fter the Theatre', and 'A Case History', again poses his recurrent literary quandary of whether to moralize, hoping to reform these ailments, or simply to entertain. The solution is to be found in the stories themselves, which, like his plays, offer no easy answers, but pinpoint the anguish, tedium, or downright evil of his characters with an irony that makes them both poignant and truthful.

Raymond Carver called Anton Chekhov "the greatest short story writer who has ever lived." This unequivocal verdict on Chekhov's genius has been echoed many times by writers as diverse as Katherine Mansfield, Somerset Maugham, John Cheever and Tobias Wolf. While his popularity as a playwright has sometimes overshadowed his achievements in prose, the importance of Chekhov's stories is now recognized by readers as well as by fellow authors. Their themes--alienation, the absurdity and tragedy of human existence--have as much relevance today as when they were written, and these superb new translations capture their modernist spirit. Elusive and subtle, spare and unadorned, the stories in this selection are among Chekhov's most poignant and lyrical. The book includes well-known pieces such as "The Lady with the Little Dog," as well as less familiar work like "Gusev," inspired by Chekhov's travels in the Far East, and "Rothschild's Violin," a haunting and darkly humorous tale about death and loss. The stories are arranged chronologically to show the evolution of Chekhov's art.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The first of Chekhov´s works to be published in a serious literary journal, `The Steppe´, with its masterly account of a spectacular thunderstorm, signifies his maturation as a writer of short stories. While the majority of his tales focus on the privileg

Writing towards the close of the nineteenth century, Chekhov - himself a country doctor - recorded in his fiction the symptoms of a diseased society. The seven stories collected here are a bleakly savage indictment of a society paralysed by spiritual mala