Product Description

"        Chekhov is a supreme artist," said Harold Brodkey. "He has conferred more meaning on us than any other artist of the century. He is the founding master and tutelary spirit of democratic realism."
        This collection, selected by Shelby Foote, presents seventy of Chekhov's early short stories, written between 1883 and 1888, in celebrated translations by Constance Garnett. One of the most memorable is "The Death of a Government Clerk," a glorious parody in which a fawning official is undone by an ill-timed sneeze. "On the Road," the history of an educated man's search for convictions, is one of Chekhov's finest dramatic stories and the source of his first full-length play, Ivanov. And in "The Steppe," which marked a turning point in Chekhov's career, a boy's picaresque journey across the Russian heartland evokes the soul of Russia itself. Also included are "The Huntsman," "Anyuta," "Easter Eve," "Happiness," and "The Kiss."
        "Chekhov is a superb anatomist of the human heart and an utter master of his literary means," said John Barth. "The details of scene and behavior, the emotions registered--seldom bravura, typically muted and complex, often as surprising to the characters themselves as to the reader, but always right--move, astonish, and delight us line after line, story after story." Eudora Welty agreed: "Chekhov, speaking simply and never otherwise than as an artist and a humane man, showed us in fullness and plenitude the mystery of our lives. . . . What truth [he] found through his stories is ours forever."
        Shelby Foote has provided an Introduction for this edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #884677 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-26
• Released on: 1999-01-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 672 pages

From Library Journal
This fab duo sport 110 of Chekhov's shorts (70 Early and 40 Later). Along with the text, this additionally includes a brief biography and an introduction by editor Foote. Good stuff.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"        Twentieth-century consciousness didn't begin on the stroke of midnight 1899, but in the minds of the outriders of human society--the artists--some time before. As early as 1886, when Chekhov wrote 'Anyuta' out of his daily experiences as a medical student, he showed that in the apparently inconsequential lie the enormities of human behavior; in ellipsis--if the writer is good enough to convey this--is what people feel and leave unsaid. . . . Those of us who write short stories--could we, if there had been no Chekhov? Without him,
I believe the short story would have become an archaic form."
--Nadine Gordimer


Y

Other Chekhov collections from the
Modern Library:
Later Short Stories: 1888-1903
Longer Stories from the Last Decade -- Review

Review
"        Twentieth-century consciousness didn't begin on the stroke of midnight 1899, but in the minds of the outriders of human society--the artists--some time before. As early as 1886, when Chekhov wrote 'Anyuta' out of his daily experiences as a medical student, he showed that in the apparently inconsequential lie the enormities of human behavior; in ellipsis--if the writer is good enough to convey this--is what people feel and leave unsaid. . . . Those of us who write short stories--could we, if there had been no Chekhov? Without him,
I believe the short story would have become an archaic form."
--Nadine Gordimer


Y

Other Chekhov collections from the
Modern Library:
Later Short Stories: 1888-1903
Longer Stories from the Last Decade

Customer Reviews

...lesson one..
Marvelous is the only word to describe this first of three volumes of Anton Chekhov's short stories published by the Modern Library. While the following two compilations are each superlative in their own way (thank you again, Shelby Foote), this Early Short Stories 1883-88, is a thrilling peek at genuis not only flowering but seemingly mature; a self-assured young artist at play in his medium, inventing a new(then) approach to emotions as easily as passing off a serf's bromide or a bishop's benediction. This is lesson one in the art of the short story, boys & girls, and it doesn't get much better....ever.

CHEKHOV IN THE ORIGINAL ENGLISH...
Say what you will about the greatness of modern translations of great literature--I too would argue that Fagles's Homer is worth its weight in gold, I'd take Raffel over Putnam any day the week in both Cervantes and Rabelais, Pevear and Volokhonsky have brought Dostoevsky to life for me--and yet there is something to be said for reading the E.V. Rieus, Samuel Putnams, and yes, the Constance Garnetts of the world.

I am sure Pevear's Chekhov is Chekhov straight up, no filler or watering down. I'm sure it reveals the author in ways that those of us not yet able to speak or read Russian have not yet known. I will gladly read Pevear (and hopefully the Russian) somewhere on down the line.

But here is Chekhov in the original English. Here is the wide-eyed, yet steady prose of Constance Garnett. We must not, in our hubris, bypass this. It is a treasure. I am glad for having read it.

Mr. Foote's selections and foreword are as steady and beautifully clean as the translations of Ms. Garnett. He spent a good deal of time on this project and is to be commended for it. He is a true force in American letters, one whose greatness and influence will only grow with time.

Modern Library is also to be commended for releasing these books in three well-done and excellent volumes. One could not ask for a better package for these works.

I give this book and its two companion volumes a warm and heart-felt recommendation.

Anton's Chehov early short stories is a must have book
this is a must have collection (the 3 volumes), for anyone intersted in writting short stories or the russia of 1900's, it contains his most important works of this type, the translation is made by one of the foremost experts on russian literature 'Constance Garnett', although is to notice that it does not include any references in the footnotes of changed russian words that do not exist in english.