The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904

THE LADY WITH THE LITTLE DOG AND OTHER STORIES

ANTON PAVLOVICH CHEKHOV, the son of a former serf, was born in 1860 in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov. He received a classical education at the Taganrog Gymnasium, then in 1879 he went to Moscow, where he entered the medical faculty of the university, graduating in 1884. During his university years he supported his family by contributing humorous stories and sketches to magazines. He published his first volume of stories, Motley Tales, in 1886 and a year later his second volume, In the Twilight, for which he was awarded the Pushkin Prize. His most famous stories were written after his return from the convict island of Sakhalin, which he visited in 1890. For five years he lived on his small country estate near Moscow, but when his health began to fail he moved to the Crimea. After 1900, the rest of his life was spent at Yalta, where he met Tolstoy and Gorky. He wrote very few stories during the last years of his life, devoting most of his time to a thorough revision of his stories, of which the first comprehensive edition was published in 1899–1901, and to the writing of his great plays. In 1901 Chekhov married Olga Knipper, an actress of the Moscow Art Theatre. He died of consumption in 1904.

RONALD WILKS studied Russian language and literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, after training as a Naval interpreter, and later Russian literature at London University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1972. Among his translations for Penguin Classics are My Childhood, My Apprenticeship and My Universities by Gorky, Diary of a Madman by Gogol, filmed for Irish Television, The Golovlyov Family by Saltykov-Shchedrin, How Much Land Does a Man Need? by Tolstoy, Tales of Belkin and Other Prose Writings by Pushkin, and six other volumes of stories by Chekhov: The Party and Other Stories, The Kiss and Other Stories, The Fiancée and Other Stories, The Duel and Other Stories, The Steppe and Other Stories and Ward No.6 and Other Stories. He has also translated The Little Demon by Sologub for Penguin.

PAUL DEBRECZENY is Emeritus Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina. He has translated the complete prose fiction of Alexander Pushkin and is the author of The Other Pushkin: A Study of Alexander Pushkin’s Prose Fiction (1983) and Social Functions of Literature: Alexander Pushkin and Russian Culture (1997); and a volume of co-edited essays, Russian Narrative and Visual Art: Varieties of Seeing (1994). He also co-edited Chekhov’s Art of Writing: A Collection of Critical Essays (1977).

ANTON CHEKHOV

The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories

Translated with Notes by RONALD WILKS

With an Introduction by PAUL DEBRECZENY

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published 2002

1

Translation, Chronology and Publishing History and Notes © Ronald Wilks, 2002

Introduction © Paul Debreczeny, 2002

‘The House with the Mezzanine’, ‘Ionych’, ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ and

‘Disturbing the Balance’ newly translated 2002. ‘Peasants’, ‘Man in a Case’,

‘Gooseberries’, ‘About Love’, ‘In the Ravine’ and ‘The Bishop’ first published 1982,

pre-existing translations © Ronald Wilks, 1982. ‘My Life’ first published 1985,

pre-existing translation © Ronald Wilks, 1985. ‘A Visit to Friends’ and ‘The Bride’

first published 1986, pre-existing translations © Ronald Wilks, 1986

All rights reserved

The moral right of the editors has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,

re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s

prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

EISBN: 978–0–141–90685–0

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

FURTHER READING

CHRONOLOGY

NOTE ON TEXT

PATRONYMICS

The House with the Mezzanine

Peasants

Man in a Case

Gooseberries

About Love

A Visit to Friends

Ionych

My Life

The Lady with the Little Dog

In the Ravine

Disturbing the Balance

The Bishop

The Bride

PUBLISHING HISTORY AND NOTES