Written during Chekhov's late twenties and early thirties, these stories are the
work of a young writer in dialogue with his masters: Tolstoy, Gogol, and Furgen
es. The stories-"The Steppe," "Panpipes," "The Kiss," "Verochka," "The Name-day
Party," "A Dreary Story," "Gusev," and "The Duel"-deal with good and evil, depic
ting heroes, villains, and monsters with a lightness of touch and a lack of ambi
guity that is largely absent from Chekhov's later work.
This "Penguin Classics
" edition, with new translations of the stories by Ronald Wilks, includes an ann
otated bibliography, chronology, publishing histories, and explanatory notes. An
introduction by internationally renowned Chekhov scholar Donald Rayfield provid
es a contemporary understanding of this masterful Russian writer.
