A Russian author, playwright, and physician, Anton Chekhov is widely considered one of the best short-story writers of all time. Having influenced such writers as Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and James Joyce, Chekhovβs stories are often noted for their stream-of-consciousness style and their vast number. Raymond Carver once said, βIt is not only the immense number of stories he wroteβfor few, if any, writers have ever done moreβit is the awesome frequency with which he produced masterpieces, stories that shrive us as well as delight and move us, that lay bare our emotions in ways only true art can accomplish.β
In The Complete Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume 1: 1882β1885, Blackstone has compiled forty-one of these delightful short stories:
A Living Chattel Joy At the Barberβs An Enigmatic Nature A Classical Student The Death of a Government Clerk The Trousseau A Daughter of Albion An Inquiry Fat and Thin A Tragic Actor The Bird Market A Slander The Swedish Match Choristers The Album Minds in Ferment A Chameleon In the Graveyard Oysters The Marshalβs Widow Small Fry In an Hotel Boots Nerves A Country Cottage Malingerers The Fish Gone Astray The Huntsman A Malefactor The Head of the Family A Dead Body The Cookβs Wedding In a Strange Land Overdoing It Old Age Sorrow Oh! The Public! Mari dβElle The Looking-Glass
Anton Chekhov (1860β1904), the author of hundreds of short stories and several plays, is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama. He described the Russian life of his time using a deceptively simple technique devoid of obtrusive literary devices, thereby becoming the prominent representative of the late nineteenth-century Russian realist school. His early stream-of-consciousness style strongly influenced the literary world, including writers such as James Joyce.
Constance Garnett (1862β1946) translated the works of numerous Russian authors, including Tolstoy, Gogol, Pushkin, and Turgenev.
Anthony Heald, an Audie Awardβwinning narrator, has earned Tony nominations and an Obie Award for his theater work; appeared in televisionβs Law & Order, The X-Files, Miami Vice, and Boston Public; and starred as Dr. Frederick Chilton in the 1991 Oscar-winning film The Silence of the Lambs. He has also won numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for his narrations.