Publication

1998 - Henry Holt, New York, New York (State)

Language

English

Word Count

168,500 words, Guess

Page Count

674 pages

Identifiers

  • Open LibraryOL682214M
  • ISBN-100805057471
  • OCLC Control Number37345694
  • Library of Congress Control Number97028888
  • Goodreads1443009
and 1 more
  • LibraryThing331984

Classifications

  • DDC891.72/3
  • LCCPG3458 .R35 1998

Description

"Anton Chekhov's life was short, intense, and dominated by battles - both with his dependents and with the tuberculosis that was to kill him at age forty-four. He was one of the greatest playwrights and short-story writers ever born, but he was torn between medicine and literature, as he was between family and friends, between a longing for solitude and a need for company. When he was a child, his family life was at times made a hell by a monstrous father, a possessive sister, and delinquent elder brothers; his own adult life was tortuously balanced between the affections of a series of mistresses and a marriage to an actress that was not as idyllic as it has traditionally been painted." "Donald Rayfield's biography strips the whitewash from the image of Chekhov and shows us what lay behind his restrained, ironic facade. The result does not denigrate him but shows him in the full heroism of his brief, prodigiously creative life. Rayfield has spent more than three years combing the Chekhov archives all over Russia (Chekhov was a restless traveler for the whole of his life, going from Siberia to the Cote d'Azur) and has uncovered thousands of documents and letters from Chekhov's lovers, friends, and family, most of them never published before, which cumulatively tell of a life far more entangled and turbulent than we ever previously suspected. The many cuts made in Soviet and foreign editions of Chekhov's and his wife's letters have been restored; what once was hidden is now revealed."--Jacket.

Subjects

Other Editions

  • Anton Chekhov: a lifeHenry Holt1998-01-01

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