The Complete Short Novels -- Anton Chekhov

<p>Anton Chekhov, widely hailed as the supreme master of the short story, also wrote five works long enough to be called short novels-here brought together in one volume for the first time, in a masterly new translation by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.<br><i><br>The Steppe</i>--the most lyrical of the five--is an account of a nine-year-old boy's frightening journey by wagon train across the steppe of southern Russia. <i>The Duel </i>sets two decadent figures--a fanatical rationalist and a man of literary sensibility--on a collision course that ends in a series of surprising reversals. In <i>The Story of an Unknown Man</i>, a political radical spying on an important official by serving as valet to his son gradually discovers that his own terminal illness has changed his long-held priorities in startling ways. <i>Three Years</i> recounts a complex series of ironies in the personal life of a rich but passive Moscow merchant. In <i>My Life</i>, a man renounces wealth and social position for a life of manual labor. <p/>The resulting conflict between the moral simplicity of his ideals and the complex realities of human nature culminates in a brief apocalyptic vision that is unique in Chekhov's work. <p/></p><br><br><b>Author:</b> Anton Chekhov<br><b>Publisher:</b> Vintage<br><b>Published:</b> 08/30/2005<br><b>Pages:</b> 576<br><b>Binding Type:</b> Paperback<br><b>Weight:</b> 0.94lbs<br><b>Size:</b> 8.04h x 5.28w x 1.01d<br><b>ISBN:</b> 97814