Chekhov's Letters: Biography, Context, Poetics

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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 substantialthough until now neglectedepistolary 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.

Reviews

The Chekhov that emerges from these insightful essays is a warm, generous, and deeply empathetic man. Appropriately, Lapushin concludes the scintillating volume by shedding light on the open ending of Chekhovs two last letters and his enduring legacy. Chekhovs Letters is as rigorous in its scholarship as it is delightful in its creative detours. One only wishes that more individual letters were covered, but given the sheer volume of Chekhovs correspondence, that would be impossible. This marvelous book instructs, entertains, and inspires to delve into the letters themselves. * The Russian Review *

Authoritative, careful, and scholarly, and yet charming, balanced, and well-writtenwhat a fantastic combination of epithets to bring together for this delightful volume. Carol Apollonio and Radislav Lapushin have gathered the best Russian, British, and North American scholars and writers to offer fascinating historical background, textual analysis, and personal insight into the most intimate genre of writingthe epistolaryand the most approachable of Russian writersChekhov. These chapters give us Anton Chekhov from new angles. We see him and his thoughtsthoughtful, witty, philosophical, funny, humaneas we have never seen them before. This is a volume to dip into or to read cover to cover, and always with one or more editions of Chekhovs letters to hand.

-- Angela Brintlinger, Ohio State University

Chekhovs letters are entertaining, witty, and moving; they are self-ironical, reflective-philosophical, and they illuminate his innermost beliefs. His postal prose was also his creative laboratory. Yet Chekhovs epistolary legacy was rarely discussed as a genre in its own right. The inspired editorial initiative by professors Carol Apollonio and Radislav Lapushin has changed that state of affairs by bringing both specialists and general readers a unique collection of seminal meta-epistolary articles, the first such collection in either English or Russian. Outstanding Russian, European, Canadian and American Chekhov scholars share their broad range of insights into the novel Chekhov never wrote, i.e., the life narrative of his more than four thousand preserved letters. This collection, which also includes the delightful section My Favorite Letter, shows its authors as kindred spirits following in Chekhovs footsteps: they are innovative, perspicacious and unafraid of undermining traditional truths, while adding important facets to our understanding of this authors elusive personality and artless art. Chekhovs Letters is undoubtedly the splendid portal to a productive new era of Chekhov scholarship.

-- Irene Masing-Delic, Ohio State University

In his fiction, Chekhov is notoriously reserved, keeping his thoughts to himself. This unique collection of essays mines his letters for information about his life, personality, opinions, works, poetics, and times. It also tells the fascinating story of their preservation (or loss) and publication. The authors include writers as well as scholars, and the collection ends with ruminations, all different, on favorite letters. There is something here for every reader interested in Chekhov. Taken in the aggregate, the essays reveal how the lettersthemselves a pinnacle of Russian psychological prosegive voice to a complex inner life that we puzzle over, identify with, and learn from.

-- Donna Tussing Orwin, University of Toronto

Author Bio

Carol Apollonio is professor of Russian at Duke University.

Radislav Lapushin is associate professor of Russian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.