Chekhov Becomes Chekhov

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You should never describe yourself. It would have been better had you made Pospelov fall in love with some woman, and incorporated your feelings in her.

—To a fellow writer1

If someone offers you coffee, don’t go looking for beer in it. If I present you with the ideas of the Professor, trust me and don’t look for Chekhov’s ideas in them, thank you kindly.

—To his friend and editor Aleksei Suvorin2

Anton Chekhov’s biography in 1886–1887 is captured almost completely in the writing that he was doing. Reading the stories, we are as close as we can be to being in his company.

In 1886, the twenty-six-year-old Moscow doctor published 112 short stories, humor pieces, and articles. In 1887, he published sixty-four short stories.3 The young author was, to his surprise and occasional embarrassment, famous; admired by, among others, Russia’s literary giants Lev Tolstoy and Nikolay Leskov.4 In these two years, three volumes of his short stories were published. Meanwhile, three hours a day, six days a week, Dr. Chekhov treated patients in his office at his family’s residence, and also made house calls; he lived with and supported his parents and younger siblings. In the winter of 1886, he became engaged and unengaged to be married. He mentored other writers with matter-of-fact encouragement and brilliant criticism. He carried on lively, frank, funny correspondence with editors, friends, and his older brothers. Having written, he was exhausted, but in the midst of writing, whether venting and making jokes in letters or amusing himself and us with stories, his senses seemed fully alive, consciousness and imagination flowing together.

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