The Prank

(Paperback, Main)

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The Prank is a major international literary discovery: the young Anton Chekhov's own selection of the best of his early work, here appearing for the first time in any language as the single volume its author intended it to be, and featuring two stories that have not been translated into English before. In 1880, while pursuing his medical studies, Chekhov took up his pen the better to support himself and his family. In the next two years, he published more than sixty stories under various pseudonyms, soon gaining a reputation as a brilliant young writer. In 1882, he decided it was time to establish his name and claim to fame properly, and so he picked and carefully put together the twelve stories he considered his best work, intending to publish them with illustrations by his brother Nikolay, a gifted artist himself. The Prank, as Chekhov entitled the book, was all set to go to the printer when a Tsarist censor suppressed the book. Why Because, as Chekhov wrote to a friend, "my best stories uproot the foundations." Satires, send-ups, tales of student life, artistic ambition, hunting parties, troubled families, love and betrayal, these twelve stories, accompanied by Nikolay's illustrations, display the zest, energy, humor, and unsparing insight that were Chekhov's from the start.

Reviews

"Its a remarkable and fun collection, with original illustrations by his brother Nikolay, some of them delightfully saucy...it was this impatient, comic exuberance that supplied the momentum to keep [Anton Chekhov] going at a more measured, considered pace later on. And there are jokes that will still make you laugh." Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

"Chekhov selected the 12 stories gathered here for publication in what he intended to be his first collection in 1882, but the book was suppressed by censors. Now NYRB has printed the stories, together with illustrations by Chekhovs brother Nikolay, in one of the most oddly fascinating documents to emerge from the publishers extraordinary catalogue. It is a rare peek into the tastes of the 19th-century Russian public and the juvenilia of a canonized writer." Publishers Weekly

The celebrated style of the American short story (think John Cheever, Andre Dubus) would not exist without [Chekhov], and American readers and lovers of fiction are duty-bound to pick up this volume of Chekhovs early work, selected by the author himself. Nicole Jones, Vanity Fair

The Prank is frankly indispensable for readers of Chekhov, or Russian literature, or comedic literature, or parody, or any and all literature. More importantly, the book is hilarious. Jonathon Sturgeon, Flavorwire

They areentertaining and often very funny, especially when the humour tends towards the absurd...The Prank, which includes the illustrations that Nikolai ('Kolia') Chekhov drew to accompany his younger brothers stories, offers plenty of enjoyment.Chris Power, New Statesman

Read Chekhov, read the stories straight through. Francine Prose

Chekhovs stories are as wonderful (and necessary) now as when they first appeared...It is not only the immense number of stories he wrotefor few, if any, writers have ever done moreit is the awesome frequency with which he produced masterpieces, stories that shrive us as well as delight and move us, that lay bare our emotions in ways only true art can accomplish. Raymond Carver

As readers of imaginative literature, we are always seeking clues, warnings...Where in life to search more assiduously; what not to overlook; whats the origin of this sort of human calamity, that sort of joy and pleasure: how can we live nearer to the latter, further off from the former And to such seekers as we are, Chekhov is a guide, perhaps the guide. Richard Ford

[Chekhovs characters] are not lit by the hard light of common day but suffused in a mysterious grayness. They move in this as though they were disembodied spirits. It is their souls that you seem to see...You have the feeling of a vast, gray, lost throng wandering aimless in some dim underworld. Somerset Maugham

We have to cast about in order to discover where the emphasis in these strange stories rightly comes...The soul is ill; the soul is cured; the soul is not cured. Virginia Woolf


Reading his stories keeps us honest, and humble, but somehow also lighthearted. Sonya Chung

What writers influenced me as a young man Chekhov! As a dramatist Chekhov! As a story writer Chekhov! Tennessee Williams

Reading Chekhov was just like the angels singing to me. Eudora Welty

The Prankis frankly indispensable for readers of Chekhov, or Russian literature, or comedic literature, or parody, or any and all literature. More importantly, the book is hilarious.
Jonathon Sturgeon,Flavorwire

Author Bio

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), the son of a grocer and a serf, worked as a physician and ran an open clinic for the poor, while also writing the plays and short stories that have established him as one of the greatest figures in Russian literature. NYRB Classics also publishes Peasants and Other Stories, a selection of Chekhov's short works, edited by Edmund Wilson. Maria Bloshteyn is a translator and scholar of Russian and American literature. She lives in Toronto.