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This title is no longer available from this publisher at this time. To let the publisher know you are interested in the title, please email bv-help@uchicago.edu.
Anton Chekhov: A Life
Anton Chekhov: A Life
by Donald Rayfield
Northwestern University Press, 2000 Paper: 978-0-8101-1795-2
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Anton Chekhov's life was short, intense, and dominated by battles, both with his dependents and with the tuberculosis that killed him at age forty-four. The traditional image of Chekhov is that of the restrained artist torn between medicine and literature. But Donald Rayfield's biography reveals the life long hidden behind the noble facade. Here is a man capable of both great generosity toward needy peasants and harsh callousness toward lovers and family, a man who craved with equal passion the company of others and the solitude necessary to create his art. Based on information from Chekhov archives throughout Russia, Rayfield's work has been hailed as a groundbreaking examination of the life of a literary master.A new biography of the great author and playwright.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Donald Rayfield (born 1942) is professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary, University of London. He is an author of books about Russian and Georgian literature, and about Joseph Stalin and his secret police. He is also a series editor for books about Russian writers and intelligentsia.
REVIEWS
"Without question the definitive biography of Chekhov, and like to remain so for a very long time to come. . . . [Rayfield] captures a likeness of the notoriously elusive Chekhov, which at last begins to seem recognizably human--and even more extraordinary." --Michael Frayn
"Full of fascinating surprises. It is hard to imagine another book about Chekhov after this one. . . . A sculpted likeness of a most human genius shown in the context of his time." --Arthur Miller
"The life Rayfield describes is no less impressive for having a flawed, at times unsympathetic, figure at its center. And his restraint in presenting his controversial new findings--along with the sheer quantity of fresh material he has amassed--is finally what makes his portrait so persuasive. His clear-eyed, critical sympathy for his less-than-perfect subject might have been borrowed from Chekhov's own writing." --New York Times Book Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations and References
A Note on Transliteration
PART I. Father to the Man: 1860-79
1. Forefathers
2. Taganrog
3. Shop, Church and School
4. The Theatres of Life and Art
5. Disintegration
6. Destitution
7. Brothers Abandoned
8. Alone
PART II. Doctor Chekhov: 1879-86
9. Initiation
10. The Wedding Season
11. The Spectator
12. Fragmentation
13. The Death of Mosia
14. The Qualified Practitioner
15. Babkino
16. Petersburg Calls
17. Getting Engaged
18. Acclaim
PART III. My Brothers' Keeper: 1886-9
19. The Suvorins
20. Life in a Chest of Drawers
21. Taganrog Revisited
22. Ivanov in Moscow
23. The Death of Anna
24. Travel and Travails
25. The Prize
26. The Petersburg Ivanov
27. A Death at Luka
28. Shaking the Dust
PART IV. Années de Pèlerinage: 1889-92
29. Exorcising the Demon
30. Arming for the Crusade
31. Crossing Siberia
32. Sakhalin
33. The Flight to Europe
34. Summer at Bogimovo
35. 'The Duel' and the Famine
PART V. Cincinnatus: 1892-4
36. Sowing and Ploughing
37. Cholera
38. Summonnded by Suvorin
39. Sickbay
40. Daschshund Summer
41. Happy Avelan
42. The Women Scatter
PART VI. Lika Disparue: 1894-6
43. Abishag Cherishes David
44. Potapenko the Bounder
45. The Birth of Christina
46. O Charudatta!
47. A Misogynist's Spring
48. Incubating The Seagull
49. The Fugitive Returns
PART VII. The Flight of the Seagull: 1896-7
50. Two Diversions in Petersburg
51. Lika Rediscovered
52. The Khodynka Spring
53. The Consecration of the School
54. Night on a Bare Mountain
55. Fiasco
56. The Death of Christina
57. Cold Comfort
58. A Little Queen in Exile
59. Cutting the Gordian Knot
PART VIII. Flowering Cemeteries: 1897-8
60. The Doctor is Sick
61. An Idle Summer
62. Promenades
63. Dreaming of Algiers
64. Chekhov Dreyfusard
65. The Birth of a Theatre
66. The Broken Cog
PART IX. Three Triumphs: 1898-1901
67. The Seagull Resurrected
68. 'I am a Marxist'
69. Last Season in Melikhovo
70. Uncle Vania Triumphant
71. 'In the Ravine'
72. Olga in Yalta
73. Three Sisters
74. Nice Revisited
75. The Secret Marriage
PART X. Love and Death: 1901-4
76. Honeymoon
77. When Doctors Disagree
78. Conjugal Ills
79. Liubimovka
80. 'The Bride'
81. The Cherry Orchard
82. Last Farewells
83. Aftermath
Epilogue
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
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