The Lady with the Toy Dog, and Other Famous Short Stories

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Jan 2009 · Mondial

About this ebook

"The Lady with the Toy Dog," "Goussiev" and other famous tales by Anton Chekhov (1860-1904). --- It was the conjunction of his peculiarly independent flexibility of mind with his keen scientific outlook that equipped Anton Pavlovich Chekhov for seizing and judging modern life from fresh angles. While representative of the changing horizons and complexity of the social organism of Russia, Chekhov's vision fused the detached, impartial attitude of the modern scientist with the deep humanism, the psychological insight, the caressing tenderness and the gay humour of his sensitive temperament. It is this element, the element of tenderness and sweetness of understanding, that forms the spiritual background of so many of Chekhov's Tales, and dominates invisibly the coarse web of the human struggle and the petty network of human egoism. --- Time's revenges or the irony of satisfied desires are treated in "The Lady with the Toy Dog." Yet one cannot say that Chekhov himself is "disillusioned." His sense of spiritual beauty is too strong; and his depth of acceptation of life's pattern forms, as it were, an aura enveloping his subject. This spiritual aura hovers about it and enwraps the gloomiest, greyest, most sardonic facts of life; death itself cannot diminish it. Examine "Goussiev," a sketch of the death of two worn-out soldiers on board a steamer, when returning from the East, a sketch that is so "modern" in its all-embracing outlook and bold acceptations as to shame nearly all our writers of today. It is so humanly broad, so tender, so infallibly true in its spiritual lightings, and it conveys the mystery of nature and all its transitory processes with sharp precision. In "Goussiev" there is a sharper consciousness of life's pulsating forces, of its inescapable laws and its evasive rhythms, than in any other "modern." (Edward Garnett)

Ratings and reviews

One of Chekhov's best short stories (Lady with a Dog). I highly recommend reading this short story. I would say that another translation might be better however. There are minor distracting translation/grammar mistakes with this version.

About the author

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in the provincial town of Taganrog, Ukraine, in 1860. In the mid-1880s, Chekhov became a physician, and shortly thereafter he began to write short stories. Chekhov started writing plays a few years later, mainly short comic sketches he called vaudvilles. The first collection of his humorous writings, Motley Stories, appeared in 1886, and his first play, Ivanov, was produced in Moscow the next year. In 1896, the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg performed his first full- length drama, The Seagull. Some of Chekhov's most successful plays include The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and Three Sisters. Chekhov brought believable but complex personalizations to his characters, while exploring the conflict between the landed gentry and the oppressed peasant classes. Chekhov voiced a need for serious, even revolutionary, action, and the social stresses he described prefigured the Communist Revolution in Russia by twenty years. He is considered one of Russia's greatest playwrights. Chekhov contracted tuberculosis in 1884, and was certain he would die an early death. In 1901, he married Olga Knipper, an actress who had played leading roles in several of his plays. Chekhov died in 1904, spending his final years in Yalta. Andrew Moore assisted James McNair on the last 10 of his cookbooks, including recipe development and editing. James and Andrew divide their time between a home in Northern California and their lodge on the north shore of Lake Tahoe.