Chekhov the Man

Kornei Chukovsky was an extraordinary figure: a critic and memoirist of the Silver Age, a literary scholar and editor, a celebrated children's poet, and a noted translator and theoretician of translation. Especially fine were his translations from English, including renderings of Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and G. K. Chesterton. From Two to Five, first published in 1928 and reissued many times, presents witty, thoughtful observations of children's psychology and verbal creativity, and has been frequently used by linguists. Chukovsky's own verses for children, which are enormously popular, are among the classics of this genre in Russia.