Stories of Chekhov - Softcover

Chekhov, Anton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1461078431 ISBN 13: 9781461078432

Publisher: Createspace, 2011

Synopsis

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in the history of world literature. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Chekhov practiced as a doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. His originality consists in an early use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, later adopted by James Joyce and other modernists, combined with a disavowal of the moral ending of traditional story structure.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Called the greatest of short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. Now, thirty of his best tales from the major periods of his creative life are available in this outstanding one volume edition. Included are Chekhov's characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as "The Huntsman" from 1885, which brilliantly conveys the complex texture of two lives during a meeting on a summer's day. Four years later, Chekhov produced the tour de force "A Boring Story" (1889), the penetrating and caustic self-analysis of a dying professor of medicine. Dark irony, social commentary, and symbolism mark the stories that follow, particularly "Ward No. 6" (1892), where the tables turn on the director of a mental hospital and make him an inmate. Here, too, is one of Chekhov's best -known stories. "The Lady with the Little Dog" (1899), a look at illicit love, as well as his own favorite among his stories, "The Student," a moving piece about the importance of religious tradition.

Atmospheric, compassionate, and uncannily wise, Chekhov's short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov's prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style-and, in doing so, a true understanding of his greatness.

From the Back Cover:

"This is an adagio reading, distinctive and fresh, that returns us to a work we thought we knew, subtly altered and so made new again."
-- The Washington Post Book World on the PEN Translation Award --
Winning version of the Brothers Karamazov by Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky

About this edition

• Publisher: Createspace
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1461078431
• ISBN 13: 9781461078432
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 194