From the introduction to The Unknown Chekhov:

At least a dozen years were to pass [after Anton Chekhov’s first short story published in English] before his tales began to gain some attention in the English-speaking world. … [And yet] when work on the present collection was begun, scores of stories were still inaccessible in English, some of them comparable to those that have become a part of the literary heritage of the west. …

At the start of his career [Chekhov] turned out a great deal of copy for the comic papers [that] evidenced a genuine sense of fun, a satiric verve, an eye for revealing details of appearance and behavior, an ear for living speech, signs of that “talent for humanity,” compacted of understanding and compassion, which is Chekhov’s signature. …

From the first, the youthful humorist tried his hand at journalism… These breezy, gossipy, often biting paragraphs—he did not flinch from muckraking—touched on everything, from the unsanitary condition of the tenements to women’s fashions. … Wholly unknown [in English] were Chekhov’s journalistic writings, as well as his book on the island of Sakhalin and its penal colony.

The reader is offered here a selection from all of this material.

Author Biography

Anton Chekhov was born in 1860 in a small town on the Sea of Azov. His plays include Ivanov, Platonov, Uncle Vanya, On the High Road, and The Proposal, among others. As he was beginning to gain international recognition as a major dramatist, he suffered two heart attacks and died in Badenweiler, Germany.

Dr. Avrahm Yarmolinsky, the translator of The Unknown Chekhov, is head of the Slavonic Division of the New York Public Library. He is the author of biographies of Dostoevsky and Turgenev, as well as the editor of The Portable Chekhov.

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