“There is still no satisfactory book on Anton Chekhov,” wrote the great Irish storyteller Frank O’Connor in 1963, and in 1988 the statement remains true, despite three distinguished recent attempts to ...

Pondering the meaning and purpose of life is not a trivial pursuit, and indeed, the search becomes most urgent when people are confronted with tragedy, loss and grief. But as some of the world's great ...

In the summer of 1884, shortly after qualifying as a doctor in Moscow, Anton Chekhov began working at a district hospital. “I am in fine fettle, for I have my medical diploma in my pocket,” he ...

For some years now I have been telling an anecdote, always prefacing it by announcing that it is my favorite literary anecdote, large parts of which, I have come to discover, I seem to have invented.

Antosha & Levitasha: The Shared Lives and Art of Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan. Serge Gregory. Northern Illinois University Press, December 2015. $39, paper. The University of Illinois’ slide ...