Some popular starting points for short story readers include, Ward No. 6, The Darling and Gusev, The Hunstman and The Lady with the Little Dog. A Dreary Story is also an excellent work. Due to it's length I have classified it here as a book. It's also well known under the alternative title A Boring Story which is the title listed in the short story section as a convenience to readers searching under that name. Anton Chekhov himself was personally fond of his short story The Student.
In 1897 Chekhov was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He purchased land in Yalta in 1898 after his father's death and had a villa built. He moved into the villa in 1899 with his mother and sister. This was a very prolific period for the great writer and he produced some of his most famous work during this period. Amongst those works is a trilogy featuring Ivan Ivanovitch, a veterinary surgeon and his schoolmaster friend, Burkin. The two are on a small trekking and shooting holiday. Chekhov overlays three stories that are amongst his most famous short stories in a trilogy sometimes referred to as "The Little Trilogy". The three short stories, in order, are: The Man in a Case, Gooseberries, and About Love. It was also during this period in Yalta that he produced Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.
Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper, 1901Witty to the end, Chekhov's last words were, "I haven't had champagne for a long time." His words were a play on a specific etiquette practiced in German medicine at the time; when it was determined that there was no hope for a patient's recovery, it was customary for the doctor to offer the patient a glass of champagne.
We feature two volumes of Anton Chekhov's great short stories in our
