Chekhov wrote and sold short stories and vignettes of Russian life from 1880 to 1903, the year before his death from tuberculosis aged forty-four. During those twenty-three years, while he was also studying and practicing medicine, he produced at least 500 short stories.

Between 1916 and 1922 many of those stories were translated into English by Constance Garnett, and Chekhov’s approach to style, form and characterisation began to influence writers across the Western world.

He is widely regarded to be one of the greatest short story writers: many consider him ‘the grandfather’ of the modern short story.

We will aim to discuss what that means, as we consider four stories published between 1887 and 1899, his most prolific years as a story writer. We’ll talk about translations and translating, as well as themes, characters and what we get from reading a story about nineteenth century Russia.

There is no preferred translation.

Please read, The Kiss, Champagne, The Grasshopper, and The Darling in preparation for our discussion. These can be accessed free on-line from https://www.online-literature.com/anton_chekhov/1169/