Forty StoriesIf 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 these Forty Stories. The abashed happiness of a woman in the presence of the husband who abandoned her years before. The obsequious terror of the official who accidentally sneezes on a general. The poignant astonishment of an aging Don Juan overtaken by love. Spanning the entirety of Chekhov's career and including such masterpieces as "Surgery," "The Huntsman," "Anyuta," "Sleepyhead," "The Lady With the Pet Dog," and "The Bishop," this collection manages to be amusing, dazzling, and supremely moving—often within a single page. |
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... head and pretend to be some visiting emir from the mysterious lands of the East. On a train journey he was in his element. If he was traveling with his mother he would pretend she was a countess and himself a very unimportant servant in ...
... head and pretend to be some visiting emir from the mysterious lands of the East. On a train journey he was in his element. If he was traveling with his mother he would pretend she was a countess and himself a very unimportant servant in ...
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... head of the procession a big, fat policeman rode majestically on a fat white horse. It all seemed cruelly common and vulgar, and quite incompatible with the memory of a great and subtle artist.” But was it so incompatible? Chekhov ...
... head of the procession a big, fat policeman rode majestically on a fat white horse. It all seemed cruelly common and vulgar, and quite incompatible with the memory of a great and subtle artist.” But was it so incompatible? Chekhov ...
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... head on a rock, and the scar remained for the rest of his life. He was fifteen when he caught a chill while bathing, and peritonitis set in. For a few days his life was despaired of. A German doctor who attended him during his ...
... head on a rock, and the scar remained for the rest of his life. He was fifteen when he caught a chill while bathing, and peritonitis set in. For a few days his life was despaired of. A German doctor who attended him during his ...
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... head—this is all we are told, but it is enough. The woman is sketched in even more lightly. She is a pale peasant woman of thirty with a sickle in her hand. In a few pages the whole absurd, lamentable history of these people is revealed ...
... head—this is all we are told, but it is enough. The woman is sketched in even more lightly. She is a pale peasant woman of thirty with a sickle in her hand. In a few pages the whole absurd, lamentable history of these people is revealed ...
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... head over heals into the water, and when you realize that the sea is a couple of miles deep, you are overwhelmed with fear, and for some reason you begin to think that you, yourself, will die and be cast into the sea. I remember very ...
... head over heals into the water, and when you realize that the sea is a couple of miles deep, you are overwhelmed with fear, and for some reason you begin to think that you, yourself, will die and be cast into the sea. I remember very ...
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