Fifty-Two Stories

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), the grandson of a former serf and son of a grocer, was born in Taganrog, a port in Southern Russia. His childhood was overshadowed by his frightening father, but he was close to his mother. While he was at university, his father was defrauded and went bankrupt, leaving the family in dire financial straits; Chekhov supported them almost single-handedly by selling stories and sketches to magazines. Although a doctor by profession, he soon became famous for his brilliant stories and plays, and is today recognized as one of the greatest short story writers of all time. Richard Pevear, along with his wife Larissa Volokhonsky, has translated works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Bulgakov and Pasternak. They both were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize (for Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina). They are married and live in France. Larissa Volokhonsky, along with her husband Richard Pevear, has translated works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Bulgakov and Pasternak. They both were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize (for Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina). They are married and live in France.

This beautifully produced edition from the veteran translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky collects, in chronological order, fifty-two of Anton Chekhov's short stories written between 1883 and 1898. It is a 'full deck', intended to reflect the diversity and inventiveness of the author's lesser-known fiction ... Their Chekhov is accurate, compelling and even graceful The Times Literary Supplement