Anton Chekhov The Steppe
and Other Stories
OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS
THE WORLD'S CLASSICS
THE STEPPE AND OTHER STORIES
Anton Chekhov was born in i86o in south Russia, the son of a poor grocer. At the age of 19 he followed his family to Moscow, where he studied mcdicine and helpcd to support the household by writing comic sketches for popu- lar magazines. By 1888 he was publishing in the prestigious literary monthlies of Moscow and St Petersburg: a sign that he had already attained maturity as a writer of serious fiction. During the next 15 years he wrote the short stories—50 or more of them—which form his chicf claim to world pre-eminence in the genre and are his main achieve- ment as a writer. His plays are almost cqually important, especially during his last years. He was closely associated with the Moscow Art Theatre and married its leading lady, Olga Knipper. In 1898 he was forced to move to Yalta, where he wrote his two greatest plays, Three Sisters and Tht Cherry Orchard. The premiere of the latter took place on his forty-fourth birthday. Chekhov died six months later, on 2 July 1904.
Ronald Hinglev, Emcritus Fellow of St Antony's Collcge, Oxford, edited and translated The Oxford Chekhov (9 volumes), and is the author of A Life of Anton Chekhov (also published by Oxford University Press). Hc is the translator of four othcr volumes of Chekhov stories in thc World's Classics: The Russian Master and Other Stories, Ward Number Six and Other Stories, A Woman's Kingdom and Other Stories, and The Princess and Other Stories. His transla- tions of all Chckhov's drama will be found in two World's Classics volumes, Five Plays and (forthcoming) Twelve Plays.
THE WORLD'S CLASSICS
ANTON CHEKHOV
The Steppe
and Other Stories
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by
RONALD HINGLEY
Oxford New York OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS i I
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Trjnslations and rditorial matrrial © Ronald Hinglty 196$, t$7o, i97t, 197.1, 1978, 1980 Introduction © Ronald Hinglty i99t Chronology (D Oxford Univtrsity PrtSI 1984
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British Library Catal"Juing in Puhlication Data Chtkhov, A. P. (Anton Pavlovich) 18^1904 Tht sttppt and othrr storits.-(Tht World's classics). I. Titlt II. Hingky, Ronald fi9'-7W
ISBN
Library $f Congrrss Cataloging in Publication Data Chtkhov. Anton Pavlovifh, /0(^^1904. Tlrt sttppt, and othtr storirsfAnton Chrkhov: translattd with an introduction and notts by Ronald Hittglty. p. cm.—(Tht World's classics) Includrs bihliiographical rtfrrtncrs. r. Chtlthov, Anton Pavlovich, 18^^1904— Translations, English I. Tillt H. Srrits. I'GJ4J6.A tjH.16 1991 &9i.7j3—dcio ISBN —tij-jitj66}4
Printtd in Grtat Britain by BPCC Haztll BMlts Ayksbury, Buclts
CONTENTS
Introduction vii
Select Bibliography xv
A Chronology of Anton Chekhov xvi
THE STEPPE (1888) I
AN AWKWARD BUSINESS (1888) 82
THE BEAUTIES (l888) 99
THE COBBLER AND THE DEVIL (1888) I07
THE BET (1889) 113
THIEVES (1890) I20
GUSEV (1890) I34
PEASANT WOMEN (1891) 146
IN EXILE (1892) 159
rothschild's fiddle (1894) 167
THE STUDENT (1894) I76
THE HEAD GARDENER's STORY (1894) I80
PATCH (1895) I85
THE SAVAGE (1897) I90
IN THE CART (1897) 199
NEW VILLA (1899) 207
ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS (1899) 220
AT CHRISTMAS (I900) 234
FRAGMENT (I892) 239
THE STORY OF A COMMERCIAL VENTURE (1892) 24I vi CONTENTS
FROM A RETIRED TEACHER'S NOTEBOOK (1892) 244
A FISHY AFFAIR (1892) 245
Nfltfi 247
INTRODUCTION
The present volume is the fifth selection of Chekhov's short stories to be brought out in The World's Classics, and it completes the paperback publication for this series of his entire CFuvre as a mature fiction-writer. This means that the five volumes contain all those stories which received their first publication between March 1888 and the author's death in 1904. The text is that of the original hardback translation, The Oxĵord Chekhov, except that the stories are grouped differently and that textual variants have been omitted, as has much other scholarly apparatus.' The five volumes contain sixty titles altogether, and they maintain so high a level of excellence that many readers will rate them as the finest collection of short stories which any of the world's literatures has to offer. This high standard is maintained in the present volume, with a few minor reservations indicated below, and with the obvious exception of four trifles from the year 1892 which Chekhov himself excluded from his first Collected Works of 1899-1901; these are admitted here more for the sake of completeness than for their literary qualities.2
It is hoped that the completed paperback publication of these stories will help to correct the common view of Chekhov as a dramatist whose other work is comparatively unimportant. A playwright of genius he certainly was. But he surely deserves even greater admiration for what he achieved with the short story.