Anton Chekhov - Short Novels & Selected Stories (3 books)

ANTON PAVLOVICH CHEKHOV (1860-1904) was a Russian physician, dramaturge and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

Chekhov initially wrote stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. His originality consists in an early use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, later adopted by James Joyce and other modernists, combined with a disavowal of the moral finality of traditional story structure. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.


The following three modern translations are in EPUB format:

* THE COMPLETE SHORT NOVELS (Everyman's Library, 2004). Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

* FORTY STORIES (Vintage, 1991). Translated by Robert Payne.

* SELECTED STORIES OF ANTON CHEKHOV (Bantam, 2000). Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.