More Chekhov to Enjoy

Anton Chekhov: Earliest Stories: Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880-1882
Edited by Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michaljowska
Cherry Orchard Books; 536 pp.; $35

At what age does an artist begin to fulfill himself? After reading these first 58 pieces of Chekhov’s published fiction, I’m going to revise my estimate from 25 to 20. This ambitious collection, by a team of volunteer translators of the first volume of the Soviet edition of Chekhov’s Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v tridsati tomakh, will wake up readers of English to something Russian readers already knew: even hiding behind the pseudonym of Antosha Chekhonte, the Moscow medical student was a giddy master of short stories. As the drunken journalist of 1882’s “The Correspondent” boasts: “Neither place nor time can act as brakes on talent.”

The 20-22-year-old author already had a full-sized funny bone. “I have had a pretty good life, I can tell you!” an elderly military officer reflects. “No one could ask for more. Just take the number of sturgeon I’ve eaten! A multitude! Take that sturgeon we ate in Skopin for instance… Hmm! It makes my mouth water even now.” [“Idyll—Alack and Alas!”] 

Even before completing his medical degree, Chekhov knew the comic possibilities of a doctor’s practice: 

The earlier collections of selected stories in English from Chekhov’s first years of writing have highlighted his humor, but here we find that he could also already depict everyday domestic brutality (Chekhov’s bankrupted shopkeeper father had given him painful experiences in that):

Chekhov could also already write stories from his own immediate circumstances: 

One of the most striking pieces, “At the Wolf-Baiting,” is as much an essay as a story – with Chekhov grimly suffering over his witnessing of an actual event: 

In the uncharacteristic but well-worth reading novella “A Hollow Victory,” the charismatic, brutal protagonist retells an extraordinary fairy tale, told him by his childhood nanny, the like of which would be worthy of Ivan Karamazov: 

These stories and skits differ from later stories in that some of the humorous ones aren’t that funny and a few tales seem prolix. Several of them, however, as noted in Rosamund Bartlett’s first-rate, expert introduction, were revised by Chekhov for inclusion in various contemporary anthologies. He became a superb editor of his own and others’ writing; already by 1886, he had professional and artistic advice for his older brother that he had not yet fully applied to himself in 1882: “… the most important thing is: keep at it unstintingly, don’t drop your guard for an instant, rewrite five times, prune constantly.” [Chekhov on Writing; Dover, 2025.]

In the late 1890s, when the tubercular doctor was prognosing his own death and sold the publishing rights of his collected works to the publisher Marks, he had to do the actual collecting, with friends rounding up issues of defunct humor magazines for him. He intended to revise some of these stories for inclusion, but their revision lost out to the meticulous editing of his more important later stories. When these earliest stories were republished after his death in 1904, they were wonderfully popular in pre- and post-revolution Russia. More than a hundred years ago, the great Constance Garnett translated all of his stories from 1886 on, but because she didn’t have access to the stories of 1880-1885 at first, she only translated a few. 

Anton Chekhov: Earliest Stories: Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880-1882 is a scholarly edition, overseen by the Chekhov advocate, biographer and translator Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michaljowska. Through the Anton Chekhov Foundation charity, Bartlett has helped restore Chekhov’s Yalta home and has organized the publishing of English translations of the relatively unknown or unappreciated work from 1880 to 1885, which means, I hope, that there will be another three volumes in this series. 

Each translator or translating-pair took on a story or skit, which the others read, commented upon, revised and corrected. Remarkably, the translations sound consistent with one another and have the same lift and ease that Garnett’s groundbreaking ones do. The “Explanatory Notes” are marvelous and unpedantic, with occasional biographical meat: I especially appreciated the notes about Chekhov’s friends and family. The only job that was fumbled amid the translators’ busy teamwork was proofreading, as there are numerous typographical – primarily punctuation – errors. 

–Bob Blaisdell