A Russian author, playwright, and physician, Anton Chekhov is widely considered one of the best short-story writers of all time. Having influenced such writers as Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and James Joyce, Chekhov’s stories are often noted for their stream-of-consciousness style and their vast number. Raymond Carver once said, “It is not only the immense number of stories he wrote—for few, if any, writers have ever done more—it is the awesome frequency with which he produced masterpieces, stories that shrive us as well as delight and move us, that lay bare our emotions in ways only true art can accomplish.”
In The Complete Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume 1: 1882–1885, Blackstone has compiled forty-one of these delightful short stories:
A Living Chattel
Joy
At the Barber’s
An Enigmatic Nature
A Classical Student
The Death of a Government Clerk
The Trousseau
A Daughter of Albion
An Inquiry
Fat and Thin
A Tragic Actor
The Bird Market
A Slander
The Swedish Match
Choristers
The Album
Minds in Ferment
A Chameleon
In the Graveyard
Oysters
The Marshal’s Widow
Small Fry
In an Hotel
Boots
Nerves
A Country Cottage
Malingerers
The Fish
Gone Astray
The Huntsman
A Malefactor
The Head of the Family
A Dead Body
The Cook’s Wedding
In a Strange Land
Overdoing It
Old Age
Sorrow
Oh! The Public!
Mari d’Elle
The Looking-Glass
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“With a collection of dozens of stories featuring a multitude of characters, a narrator might find himself significantly challenged. But Anthony Heald comes through with flying colors. He finds a unique voice for each character—whether drunken man, pious widow, or ignorant peasant. Breathing life into each individual, he captures eccentricity, nervousness, and egotism. His enthusiastic reading gives Chekhov his full due and endows this collection with a strong voice of its own.”
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