The Lady with the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904 (Penguin Classics)

In The Final Years Of His Life, Chekhov Had Reached The Height Of His Powers As A Dramatist, And Also Produced Some Of The Stories That Rank Among His Masterpieces. The Poignant 'the Lady With The Little Dog' And 'about Love' Examine The Nature Of Love Outside Of Marriage - Its Romantic Idealism And The Fear Of Disillusionment. And In Stories Such As 'peasants', 'the House With The Mezzanine' And 'my Life' Chekhov Paints A Vivid Picture Of The Conditions Of The Poor And Of Their Powerlessness In The Face Of Exploitation And Hardship. With The Works Collected Here, Chekhov Moved Away From The Realism Of His Earlier Tales - Developing A Broader Range Of Characters And Subject Matter, While Forging The Spare Minimalist Style That Would Inspire Such Modern Short-story Writers As Hemingway And Faulkner. In the final years of his life Chekhov had reached the height of his powers as a dramatist, while also writing short stories that rank among his masterpieces. In "The Lady with the Little Dog" a man and a woman indulge in an affair that could ruin both their marriages, but their feelings for each other compel them towards betrayal. "Peasants" focuses on the brutality of peasant life, where the locus of evil is the tavern, in which the men spend the last of their meagre earnings on vodka and go home drunk to beat their wives. And in "My Life" Misail rejects the life of a gentleman to become a labourer despite his father's protestations and threats to disown him. The works in this volume show how Chekhov moved away from the realism of his earlier stories, forging a style that would inspire modern short-story writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner and the Bloomsbury Group.-Back cover Contains: [Моя жизнь](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL9120843W)