An average student, Chekhov reportedly learned far more from his gifted mother, whose compelling stories interested him in storytelling at an early age. Considered the "father" of the modern short story and the modern play, The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories includes early Chekhov stories of note including "Oysters," "Vanka" and the lyrical "A Day in the Country." Translator Constance Garnett was a contemporary of Chekhov's, and while her translations of other nineteenth-century Russian authors have sometimes been faulted, her carefully-chosen translations provide near-contemporary English versions of Chekhov's elegant language and incomparable imagery.

Author Biography

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860 - 1904) was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theater. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress." Constance Clara Garnett (1861 - 1946) was an English translator of nineteenth-century Russian literature. Garnett was one of the first English translators of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Anton Chekhov and introduced them on a wide basis to the English-speaking public.