Book description
If any writer can be said to have invented the modern short story, it is Anton Chekhov. It is not just that Chekhov democratized this art form; more than that, he changed the thrust of short fiction from relating to revealing. And what marvelous and unbearable things are revealed in…
Why read it?
1 author picked Forty Stories as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this story. It’s set in Yalta, a resort town located on the Crimean Peninsula—territory that has been caught up in the Russian/Ukrainian war. Chekhov, who suffered from tuberculosis, had a home there, where he wrote much of his last and best work, including this—his most famous—story. It’s a simple tale about normal people—lovers who are married to others—and thus bucked the Russian trend of big societal themes. Chekhov’s political leanings changed so often, he said, that the “absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature” became the first of his six principles for…
From Stephanie's list on stories that have been adapted again and again.
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