The Lady with the Dog

Written by Anton Chekhov

Narrated by Max Bollinger

Unhappy in his marriage, a Moscow bank worker, Dmitri Gurov is vacationing in Yalta, Crimea, where he sees a young lady walking along the seafront with her small dog. They are soon engaged in an affair, and spend most of their time together walking and taking drives to Oreanda . Returning to Moscow and his daily routine, working by day and clubbing by night, Gurov expects to soon forget young Anna but finds he is haunted by her memory. Read in English, unabridged. Music by Frederic Chopin from Anton Kingsbury's album 'Classical Chillout: Chopin'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Interactive Media
• Release date: Dec 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781911144540

Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian doctor, short-story writer, and playwright. Born in the port city of Taganrog, Chekhov was the third child of Pavel, a grocer and devout Christian, and Yevgeniya, a natural storyteller. His father, a violent and arrogant man, abused his wife and children and would serve as the inspiration for many of the writer’s most tyrannical and hypocritical characters. Chekhov studied at the Greek School in Taganrog, where he learned Ancient Greek. In 1876, his father’s debts forced the family to relocate to Moscow, where they lived in poverty while Anton remained in Taganrog to settle their finances and finish his studies. During this time, he worked odd jobs while reading extensively and composing his first written works. He joined his family in Moscow in 1879, pursuing a medical degree while writing short stories for entertainment and to support his parents and siblings. In 1876, after finishing his degree and contracting tuberculosis, he began writing for St. Petersburg’s Novoye Vremya, a popular paper which helped him to launch his literary career and gain financial independence. A friend and colleague of Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, and Ivan Bunin, Chekhov is remembered today for his skillful observations of everyday Russian life, his deeply psychological character studies, and his mastery of language and the rhythms of conversation.

Reviews for The Lady with the Dog

[araridan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I actually would give this a 4.5...I really don't know what to say about Chekhov that hasn't been said before. He is obviously a master at the short story. His stories in this volume are mainly about normal almost mundane lives of the upper class. Affairs, courting, marriages, having bad dreams, growing up, etc. I appreciate that Chekhov can make such normal situations compelling to read and he doesn't have neat tidy endings or judge his characters one way or another. The only thing that's preventing me from awarding five stars is that I found myself becoming a little tired of hearing solely about the rich and ridiculous in Russia, and the recurring tendency for the women characters to be completely helpless, inane, and irrational, while the males were cruel, self-important, and indifferent. While I don't have a problem with characters exhibiting those qualities, it just seemed to happen a little too much in this volume of stories.

[lucifey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

. . . who loved without any genuine feeling, with superfluous phrases, affectedly, hysterically, with an expression that suggested that it was not love nor passion, but something more significant; . . .

Exquisite prose.