Anton Chekhov’s Selected Stories contains a wide spectrum of classics and new favorites, including Ward No. 6,
The Lady with the Little Dog,
Anna on the Neck,
The Name-Day Party,
The Kiss, An Incident at Law, and Elements Most Often Found in Novels, Short Stories, Etc. This edition features twenty-five brand-new translations, commissioned expressly for this volume from Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Peter Constantine, Rosamund Bartlett, Michael Henry Heim, among others. Twenty translations have been selected from the published work of such master translators as Patrick Miles and Harvey Pitcher, Ann Dunnigan, and Ronald Hingley. Seven additional translations are by Constance Garnett, substantially revised by Cathy Popkin. All stories are annotated to clarify unfamiliar material and to point out differences in the translators’ strategies.

Life and Letters includes a rich selection of Chekhov’s letters, some in English for the first time, some with previously redacted passages restored, as well as Aileen Kelly’s portrait of Chekhov.

Criticism explores the wide range of approaches and interpretations in two sections. Approaches juxtaposes five different perspectives on how to read Chekhov, represented by Peter Bitsilli, Alexander Chudakov, Robert Louis Jackson, Vladimir Kataev, and Radislav Lapushin. Interpretations contains ten divergent readings of stories in this edition. Case studies include Michael Finke on At Sea ; Cathy Popkin on [A Nervous] Breakdown ; Julie de Sherbinin on Peasant Women ; Liza Knapp on Ward No. 6 ; Robert Louis Jackson on Rothschild’s Fiddle and The Student ; Wolf Schmid on The Student ; John Freedman on Man in a Case,
Gooseberries, and About Love ; Caryl Emerson on A Calamity,
Anna on the Neck,
About Love, and The Lady with the Little Dog ; and Rufus Mathewson on The Lady with the Little Dog and The Beauties.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included, as is a postscript on the translators and their work. A special section, Comparison Translations, gives passages from selected stories in multiple translations.