Early Short Stories, 1883-1888

This collection, selected by Shelby Foote, presents seventy of Chekhov’s early short stories, written between 1883 and 1888, in celebrated translations by Constance Garnett. One of the most memorable is “The Death of a Government Clerk, ” a glorious parody in which a fawning official is undone by an ill-timed sneeze. “On the Road, ” the history of an educated man’s search for convictions, is one of Chekhov’s finest dramatic stories and the source of his first full-length play, Ivanov. And in “The Steppe, ” which marked a turning point in Chekhov’s career, a boy’s picaresque journey across the Russian heartland evokes the soul of Russia itself.