Forty Stories (Vintage Classics)

If any writer can be said to have invented the modern short story, it is Anton Chekhov. It is not just that Chekhov democratized this art form; more than that, he changed the thrust of short fiction from relating to revealing. And what marvelous and unbearable things are revealed in these Forty Stories. The abashed happiness of a woman in the presence of the husband who abandoned her years before. The obsequious terror of the official who accidentally sneezes on a general. The poignant astonishment of an aging Don Juan overtaken by love. Spanning the entirety of Chekhov's career and including such masterpieces as "Surgery," "The Huntsman," "Anyuta," "Sleepyhead," "The Lady With the Pet Dog," and "The Bishop," this collection manages to be amusing, dazzling, and supremely moving—often within a single page.

Table of Contents:

The little apples --
St. Peter's Day --
Green scythe --
Joy --
The ninny --
The highest heights --
Death of a government clerk --
At the post office --
Surgery --
In the cemetery --
Where there's a will, there's a way --
A report --
The threat --
The huntsman --
The malefactor --
A dead body --
Sergeant Prishibeyev --
A blunder --
Heartache --
Anyuta --
The proposal --
Vanka --
Who is to blame? --
Typhus --
Sleepyhead --
The princess --
Gusev --
The peasant women --
After the theater --
A fragment --
In exile --
Big Volodya and little Volodya --
The student --
Anna round the neck --
The house with the mezzanine --
In the horsecart --
On love --
The lady with the pet dog --
The bishop --
The bride.