Forty Stories

By Anton Chekhov and Robert Payne

If any writer can be said to have invented the modern short story, it is Anton Chekhov. It is not just that Chekhov democratized this art form; more than that, he changed the thrust of short fiction from relating to revealing. And what marvelous and unbearable things are revealed in these Forty Stories. The abashed happiness of a woman in the presence of the husband who abandoned her years before. The obsequious terror of the official who accidentally sneezes on a general. The poignant astonishment of an aging Don Juan overtaken by love. Spanning the entirety of Chekhov's career and including such masterpieces as "Surgery," "The Huntsman," "Anyuta," "Sleepyhead," "The Lady With the Pet Dog," and "The Bishop," this collection manages to be amusing, dazzling, and supremely moving—often within a single page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9780307778536

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 Forty Stories

[zoes_human · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think what amazes me the most about Anton Chekhov is the way he is able to paint such vivid images of characters who epitomize humanity. You know these people. Even over 130 years later, you recognize them.

[upstairsgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Checkhov is, of course, a master storyteller, and the worlds he creates are fascinating and complex. The bleakness of the landscape in all of them, though, is crushing. One comes away with the impression of a late nineteenth-century Russia that is dark, cold, drunk, dirty, emotionally starved and straitened, rigidly socially classified, and on the verge of something, anything - and of course, it was - like a teenager waiting for her life to start. Despite this, Checkhov is very, very, drily funny, mocking his characters even as he paints them a sympathetic creatures. The work itself is brilliant, but the reading is not altogether enjoyable. Not for reading when you yourself are feeling bleak, however black your sense of humor might be. Checkhov's women, also, tend to irritate, and feel much less real, much less three-dimensional, than his men. They are often flighty, un-self-aware, ridiculous, capricious, clinging, dependent, and melodramatic, which becomes tiresome. Payne's introduction to the Vintage Classics translation is enlightening, but it's so loaded with devotional praise of Checkhov that I was surprised to discover these caricatures inhabiting the same space as his legitimately brilliant characters. It doesn't make the stories not worth reading, but it does take away from the enjoyment one might otherwise experience.