Books by Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian short-story writer, playwright and novelist. Though he died at the age of just 44, his plays and short stories continue to be performed and read and stand as shining examples of their genre.
Leo Tolstoy | Fyodor Dostoevsky | Best Russian Novels | Best Russian Short Stories | Ivan Turgenev
“Chekhov wrote ‘Gusev’ when he was himself travelling home by sea from Siberia in 1890. He had just completed an epic overland journey to study the notorious penal colony on the island of Sakhalin, in the days before there was a train. ‘Gusev’ was the only piece of fiction which came out of this voyage…Gusev is the name of the story’s central character. He is a peasant conscript returning from a brutal period of service in the Far East, and is already dying of tuberculosis when put on board the ship…I’m not surprised that this is the story which Shostakovich wanted his wife to read to him on the night that he died. He said it was the most musical prose in all of Russian literature, and I’m inclined to agree.” Read more...
The Best Russian Short Stories
Rosamund Bartlett, Translator
“It was a great moment in Russian history. So, as a kind of period piece that captures Russia in the late 19th, early 20th century, it’s the most poignant text I’ve ever read…You learn much more about Russia before the revolution by reading The Cherry Orchard than you will by studying the tsar and his land reforms or other decisions made in St Petersburg by the leadership.” Read more...
Peter Frankopan, Historian
“His stories are mould breaking in the sense that nobody wrote short stories like Chekhov and now everybody writes short stories like Chekhov. We’re all Chekhovian now. He’s a very modern spirit who happened to write his great work at the end of the 19th century. But it’s completely 21st century thinking, it seems to me…The one I really like is his longest short story, called ‘My Life.’ It’s almost a novella. In it I think you’ll find every Chekhovian element…If somebody asks ‘What is Chekhov about?’, tell them to read ‘My Life’ and they will get everything.” Read more...
William Boyd on Writers Who Inspired Him
William Boyd, Novelist
“I’m a big fan of Chekhov and his short stories. But to me this book – which has been called so many things: journalism, travel-writing et cetera… – is about Chekhov going out into the world and looking at it…You can feel Chekhov on every page, watching, listening, noting, feeling for the people he meets.” Read more...
Yiyun Li, Memoirist
“This was a young writer’s attempt to write a financially successful thriller. The protagonist (and the narrator) is a court official investigating a murder of a young woman. It is a crime of passion, that much is evident, but there are several suspects, one of them is arrested and convicted. In the end, it turns out that the murder was committed by the investigator himself, so the novel might have been Agatha Christie’s inspiration for The Murder of Roger Akroyd. Dame Agatha did the job much better of course. As a mystery author, Chekhov is hopeless: too slow, easily distracted, and more interested in the mystery of soul.” Read more...
Boris Akunin, Thriller and Crime Writer
“Well, like much of Chekhov, it’s powerful in part because, although there is a moral undertone, no moral arguments are made, he’s not a moraliser. It’s about this guy who gets drawn into a duel so ridiculous that it’s impossible, even if you’ve just read the story, to remember exactly what it was they were duelling about. It’s often true of duels that people are prickly and they think their honour is being abused and they end up fighting. What happens is this man who is leading a rather meaningless life, fights a duel and doesn’t get killed and that turns him around and he pulls himself together. It’s just so marvellous, the description of these professional-class Russians, far, far away from Moscow in the provinces, and their preoccupation with status and all that, and these two guys in a completely pointless duel. It’s not just Chekhov creating an interesting narrative moment; it really was so common with these duels that it was extremely difficult to say in a short paragraph exactly what they were about.” Read more...
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Philosopher
Interviews where books by Anton Chekhov were recommended
The best books on Honour, recommended by Kwame Anthony Appiah
The Princeton philosophy professor tells us about the meaning of honour, how it’s won and lost, and what role it has played in the history of moral change
Five Mysteries Set in Russia, recommended by Boris Akunin
The golden age of mystery largely passed Russia by, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some great crime novels produced over the last 150 years. Bestselling crime novelist Boris Akunin, who was born Grigory Chkhartishvili in Soviet Georgia and now lives in exile in London, recommends five Russian mysteries—great works of literature that happen to also have a crime at their heart. If you’d like to see Boris/Grigory in person, he’s speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival on 18 March, 2024 at 6pm.
The Best ‘Anti-Memoirs’, recommended by Yiyun Li
Yiyun Li, author of Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, on the sheer messiness of life, the irrelevance of ‘I’, and why brutal honesty is often the truest way to capture the people we love the most
William Boyd on Writers Who Inspired Him
The novelist William Boyd tells us about the authors, from Chekhov to Heller, who most influenced his own development as a writer – and reveals the secret to a well-crafted sex scene
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Five Plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard
by Anton Chekhov -
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De Administrando Imperio
by Constantine Porphyrogenitus -
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The Alexiad
by Anna Komnene -
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Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North
by Ibn Fadlan -
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Landscapes of Power
by Caterina Franchi (Editor), Maximilian Lau (Editor) & Morgan Di Rodi (Editor)
Peter Frankopan on History
Peter Frankopan on History
What kind of books should we read to get a broader sense of history? Peter Frankopan, professor of global history at Oxford University, talks us through the books that inspired him.
The Best Russian Short Stories, recommended by Rosamund Bartlett
In Russia, it’s often fallen to writers to challenge conventions and speak the truth, says the translator and biographer Rosamund Bartlett. She makes a personal selection of some of the most exhilarating Russian short fiction.
