'Chekhov is like an Impressionist painter and has a style all hiw own,' wrote Tolstoy.

‘At first glance it appears as if the painter has merely smeared his canvas with the first colour that came to hand, indiscriminately, so that the brush-strokes seem to bear no relationship to each other. But as soon as one steps back and surveys the work from a distance, one has the remarkable impression of a colourful, irresistible painting.’

Chekhov’s painterly sensitivity to atmosphere, sensations and emotional light and shade is most brilliantly demonstrated in ‘The Party’, in which he draws on his experience as a doctor to portray the tense and conflicting feelings of a pregnant woman; or in ‘A Nervous Breakdown’, in which he describes how a morbidly shy young man reacts to the brothels of Moscow. All the stories here are vivid, pungent, memorable and, as Gorky described them, ‘like exquisite cut-glass bottles, with all the different scents of life in them’.

Includes: The Party, A Woman's Kingdom, My Life: A Provincial's Story, An Unplesant Business, A Nervous Breakdown