Chekhov&#039;s Letters

Carol Apollonio; Radislav Lapushin

doi:10.5771/9781498570459

Summary

Of the thirty volumes in the authoritative Academy edition of Chekhov's collected works, fully twelve are devoted to the writer's letters. This is the first book in English or Russian addressing this substantial—though until now neglected—epistolary corpus. The majority of the essays gathered here represent new contributions by the world's major Chekhov scholars, written especially for this volume, or classics of Russian criticism appearing in English for the first time. The introduction addresses the role of letters in Chekhov's life and characterizes the writer's key epistolary concerns. After a series of essays addressing publication history, translation, and problems of censorship, scholars analyze the letters' generic qualities that draw upon, variously, prose, poetry, and drama. Individual thematic studies focus on the letters as documents reflecting biographical, cultural, and philosophical issues. The book culminates in a collection of short, at times lyrical, essays by eminent scholars and writers addressing a particularly memorable Chekhov letter. Chekhov's Letters appeals to scholars, writers, and theater professionals, as well to a general audience.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2018
ISBN-Print: 978-1-4985-7044-2
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4985-7045-9
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 324
Product type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
3. Note on Citation, Transliteration, and Dates No access
4. Introduction. Chekhov’s Letters: An Integral Body of Work No access
1. Chapter One. Reader Reception of Chekhov’s Letters at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century No access
2. Chapter Two. Some Like It Hot: The Censored Letters No access
3. Chapter Three. On Editing and Translating Chekhov’s Letters No access
4. Chapter Four. Imaginary Chekhov? Yet Another Fabrication by Boris Sadovskoy No access
1. Chapter Five. Chekhov’s “Postal Prose” No access
2. Chapter Six. Letters Not about Chekhov: On How We Read Chekhov’s Letters No access
3. Chapter Seven. Chekhov’s Letters: Slow Reading No access
4. Chapter Eight. The Writer’s Correspondence as a Narrative Genre: Aspects of Chekhov’s Epistolary Prose No access
1. Chapter Nine. A Unity of Vision: Chekhov’s Letters No access
2. Chapter Ten. “I Listen to My Irtysh Beating against Coffins”: The Existential and Dreamlike in Chekhov’s Letters No access
3. Chapter Eleven. A Playwright’s Letters No access
1. Chapter Twelve. Homo Sachaliensis: Chekhov as a Family Man No access
2. Chapter Thirteen. Russian Binaries and the Question of Culture: Chekhov’s True Intelligent No access
3. Chapter Fourteen. Burned Letters: Reconstructing the Chekhov–Levitan Friendship No access
4. Chapter Fifteen. Verbal Games and Animal Metaphors in Chekhov’s Correspondence with Olga Knipper No access
5. Chapter Sixteen. The Withered Tree No access
6. Chapter Seventeen. Anton Chekhov and D. H. Lawrence: The Art of Letters and the Discourse of Mortality No access
1. Chapter Eighteen. Preface: Chekhov’s Blotter No access
2. Chapter Nineteen. Chekhov’s First Dissertation Proposal: To Alexander Chekhov, from Moscow, 17/18 April 1883 No access
3. Chapter Twenty. Letters, Dreams, and Their Environments: To Dmitry Grigorovich, from Moscow, 12 February 1887 No access
4. Chapter Twenty-One. Chekhov’s Letter to Lermontov: To Mikhail Chekhov, from the ship Dir, 28 July 1888 No access
5. Chapter Twenty-Two. Mission Impossible: Letters from 1888–1889 No access
6. Chapter Twenty-Three. Chekhov’s “Holy of Holies”: The Poetics of Corporeity: To Alexei Pleshcheev, from Moscow, 4 October 1888 No access
7. Chapter Twenty-Four. Winged Things: To Alexei Suvorin, from Moscow, 17 October 1889 No access
8. Chapter Twenty-Five. A Fragment from the Aggregate: Sinai and Sakhalin in Chekhov’s Letters to Suvorin: To Alexei Suvorin, 9 March 1890; 9 December 1890; 17 December 1890 No access
9. Chapter Twenty-Six. Why Not Stay Here, So Long as It’s Not Boring? To family, from Siberia, 23–26 June 1890 No access
10. Chapter Twenty-Seven. A Prescription to Keep Love at Bay: To Lika Mizinova, from Bogimovo, 20 June 1891 No access
11. Chapter Twenty-Eight. Sympathy for the Devil: To Alexei Suvorin from Melikhovo, 8 April 1892 No access
12. Chapter Twenty-Nine. Doctor Chekhov Comes to Terms with Tolstoy: To Alexei Suvorin, from Melikhovo, 1 August 1892 No access
13. Chapter Thirty. In the Hospital: To Rimma Vashchuk, from Moscow, 27 March 1897 No access
14. Chapter Thirty-One. The Power of Memory: To Fyodor Batyushkov, from Nice, 15 December 1897 No access
15. Chapter Thirty-Two. I Have No Faith in Our Intelligentsia: To Ivan Orlov, from Yalta, 22 February 1899 No access
16. Chapter Thirty-Three. Forgive, Forget, and Write: To Ivan Leontyev (Shcheglov), from Yalta, 2 February 1900 No access
17. Chapter Thirty-Four. In Place of a Conclusion: To Grigory Rossolimo and to Maria Chekhova, from Badenweiler, 28 June 1904 No access
Index of Names No access Pages 309 - 314
Index of Chekhov’s Works No access Pages 315 - 316
About the Contributors No access Pages 317 - 324