Anton Chekhov Later Short Stories, 1888-1903 (Modern Library) [Hardcover]

Anton Chekhov (Author), Shelby Foote (Editor), Constance Garnett (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 1999

"        Chekhov is one of the few indispensable writers," said Susan Sontag. "His stories, which deluge us with feeling, make feeling more intelligent; more magnanimous. He is an artist of our moral maturity."
        This volume presents forty-two of Chekhov's later short stories, written between 1888 and 1903, in acclaimed translations by Constance Garnett and chosen by Shelby Foote. Among the most outstanding are "A Dreary Story," a dispassionate tale that reflects Chekhov's doubts about his role as an artist. Thomas Mann deemed it "a truly extraordinary, fascinating story . . . unlike anything else in world literature." "The Darling," a delightful work highly admired by Tolstoy, offers comic proof that life has no meaning without love. And in "The Lady with the Dog," which Vladimir Nabokov called "one of the greatest stories ever written," a chance affair takes possession of a bored young woman and a cynical roué, changing their lives forever. Also included in this collection are the famous trilogy, "The Man in a Case," "Gooseberries," and "About Love," as
well as "Sleepy," "The Horse-Stealers," and "Betrothed."
        "The greatest of Chekhov's stories are, no matter how many times reread, always an experience that strikes deep into the soul and produces an alteration there," wrote William Maxwell. "As for those masterpieces 'The Lady with the Dog,' 'The Horse-Stealers,' 'Sleepy,' 'Gooseberries,' 'About Love'--where else do you see so clearly the difference between light and dark, or how dark darkness can be."
        Shelby Foote has provided an Introduction for this edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This fab duo sport 110 of Chekhov's shorts (70 Early and 40 Later). Along with the text, this additionally includes a brief biography and an introduction by editor Foote. Good stuff.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"        Through his work, tough-minded and compas-
sionate, he bequeathed us an idiom with which to address the century he hardly lived to see."
--Robert Stone

"        On reading Chekhov, we first grow ecstatic, and then we grieve. For he is one of those writers whose spiritual and literary intelli-
gence (they are one thing with him) is so powerful that for a moment we are seduced by our pleasure into believing in human progress, in the moral evolution of the species; then, a moment later, we see that he is in fact only a giant, an anomaly, possibly an angel, and that we may not have another like him for a thousand years."
--Russell Banks


Y

Other Chekhov collections from the
Modern Library:
Early Short Stories: 1883-1888
Longer Stories from the Last Decade

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 656 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (January 26, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679603166
• ISBN-13: 978-0679603160
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,123,464 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not entirely the best selection of the uncannily modern C., November 13, 1999

By 

Brendan A. Martin (Miami Beach, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anton Chekhov Later Short Stories, 1888-1903 (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

I studied Russian literature for years and would ultimately rank the prose biggies as follows: Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev. I frankly prefer Chekhov, however, to the megalomaniac Tolstoy. Reading Chekhov is truly uncanny. He utterly refutes our common cliche'd notions about "Russianness." His is really the most modern voice of nineteenth century literature, without the "modernism" of our century that has so easily dated. I fell in love with Chekhov partly because his Russian is the simplest and most prosaic of any Russian writer and I was consequently able to read him without mediation. I would have included certain stories in an anthology in lieu of others, namely: "In the Ravine" (V ovragie) "Murder" (Ubiijstvo) "An Attack of Nerves" (Pripadok) "The Peasants" (Muzhiki) "Gusev" (Gusev) ...and many others....

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chekhov: The Great Humanist, August 16, 2000

By 

Mr. "narata" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anton Chekhov Later Short Stories, 1888-1903 (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

Style, style, style. While it's all well and good that the reviewers below emphasize the stylistic impact Chekhov's writings have had on practically EVERY modern short story, it is important to note that his stories combine to form one of the greatest humanistic manifestos in all of literature. Throughout his life as a doctor and a writer, Chekhov's deceptively laconic artistic sensibility was constantly focused on human interests and values. Human beings, in all their messy, hurtful, tragic glory, puzzled the good doctor, but he accepted them for what they were. His writing reflects his wide embrace of all that we are. Chekhov was a great lover of mankind, and arguably its finest chronicler. His stories are clear-eyed, unsentimental reports from the front lines of human existence. Given attention, they will surely instruct and broaden any heart. We should be eternally grateful.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The master of realistic short fiction, April 15, 2002

By 

A.J. (Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anton Chekhov Later Short Stories, 1888-1903 (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

In the waning years of the 19th Century, Anton Chekhov wrote stories about the Russian middle class, with themes revolving around men and women who let their lives go astray, particularly with regard to love and marriage. Chronologically and artistically, his fiction is a sort of literary bridge between Tchaikovsky-era romanticism and Stravinsky-era chaos. Unlike Dostoevsky, he did not delve deeply into man's problems in dealing with society; he did not have any overt political or religious agenda; hot-button issues like socialism and anti-semitism are barely given a nod. A physician himself, he often used doctors as characters, marveling at their ability to mend bodies but not souls.

In Chekhov's stories, marriage is hardly a bed of roses, usually resulting in discontentment, depression, and adultery; nowhere is this more perfectly executed than in "The Lady with the Dog," which ends with the two transgressors not contrite over their sins, but resolving to carry on their affair in the face of uncertainty. In "The Party," a young married couple's disharmony culminates in a tragedy that underscores their need to love each other. Chekhov's characters tend to marry for the wrong reasons, like societal pressure, false hopes of marital bliss ("The Helpmate," "Betrothed"), and convenience and mutual benefit ("Anna on the Neck"). His characters usually are people who mean well but do the wrong things: In "At a Country House," a cultural elitist has a habit of scaring off the very men he wants his daughters to marry.

Chekhov also touches on themes of pure, often unrequited, love. "The Beauties" is a plaintive tale of infatuation, of a boy's enthralling first discovery of intangible feminine beauty. His lonely characters, such as in "The Schoolmistress," "A Doctor's Visit," and "The Darling," are often prisoners of their own inhibitions, obsessions, and self-obligations.

Other topics are covered, often exhibiting a world-weary cynicism. In the amusing fable "The Shoemaker and the Devil," the protagonist's conclusion is not the cliched lesson to be thankful for the few things he has in life, but rather that there is nothing in life worth selling his soul to the devil for. "Rothschild's Fiddle" is like a Marc Chagall painting set to prose, portraying the futility and bitterness of life offset by the beauty of art, while "Whitebrow" is a fuzzy parable. Chekhov also displays a talent for drawing comical characters, such as the talkative blowhard in "The Petchenyeg" and the prudish protagonist of "The Man in a Case." A mark of Chekhov's style is that these people often are oblivious to their own idiosyncrasies, a touch that injects as much comedy as tragedy into the stories.

These stories might leave one with the impression that Chekhov was pessimistic about love and marriage, and even life, but in my opinion they emphasize a fundamental truism about fiction -- much as in comedy, where failure is funnier than success, even though "good" love is what makes the world go around, "bad" love is more interesting to write about.