In the Ravine & Other Stories

Description

Anton Chekhov was one of the world's most accomplished short-story writers and this collection displays the breadth and variety of his genius. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library, a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold-foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. In the Ravine & Other Stories are translated by Constance Garnett and selected and introduced by novelist Paul Bailey. Chekhov had an incomparable ability to write about the seemingly every day with insight, humour and compassion. His characters are brilliantly drawn, from the church warden who's convinced his wife's a witch because strangers arrive on the doorstep whenever there's a storm, to the wronged wife who confronts her husband's chorus-girl lover, to the melancholy school teacher who imagines how her life might have been.

Anton Chekhov was born in 1860 in Southern Russia and moved to Moscow to study medicine. Whilst at university he sold short stories and sketches to magazines to raise money to support his family. His success and acclaim grew as both a writer of fiction and of plays whilst he continued to practice medicine. Ill health forced him to move from his country estate near Moscow to Yalta where he wrote some of his most famous work, and it was there that he married actress Olga Knipper. He died from tuberculosis in 1904. Constance Garnett (1861-1946) was one of the first translators to bring English language translations of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov to a wide readership.

Unsurpassed greatness as a teller of stories -- James Lasdun * Guardian * [Chekhov] is the author of some 600 stories, some of novella length. These comprise titles which are among the supreme achievements in prose narrative and have been reproduced in a host of languages. To use that tired banality, they are "world classics" -- George Steiner * Observer * These stories are a masterclass in life, in human beings and in fiction -- James Marriott * The Times *