In 1973, when yet another collection was published-Michael Henry Heim and Simon Karlinsky’s Letters of Anton Chekhov-the Hellman-Lederer book was criticized (by editors Heim and Karlinsky) as containing many “mistranslations and arbitrary cuts of crucial passages,” and for its superficial view of a complex artist. Chekhov was without the final spiritual violence which the very great creative genius has always had.” When she follows with the observation that “he knew it as he knew most things about himself,” we are reminded that Hellman could be just that critical of her own abilities. She agrees with Tolstoy’s judgment that “Chekhov doesn’t have the real nerve of a dramatist.” And in her introduction to the selection of letters that encompasses Chekhov’s courtship and marriage to Moscow Art Theatre actress Olga Kipper, Hellman observes: “What we miss in the marriage is exactly what we miss in the work: there is a lack of passion and power. Other of her risky assertions are harder to accept. Hellman takes some risks in severely criticizing Stanislavsky as being responsible for the misconception that “Chekhovian” meant “something drear and wintry, a world filled with puff-ball people, lying on a dusty table waiting for a wind to roll them off.” Hellman’s revised introduction provides a lively, human portrait of the writer there are insightful and informed references to his culture and history, personal and national. Quoted widely in drama textbooks and popular as a very readable selection of letters, it has just been made available again this year. Lederer, this new collection was selected and edited by a fellow playwright, the late Lillian Hellman.įirst published in 1954, Hellman’s The Selected Letters of Anton Chekhov was hailed by the critics. Thirty years passed before another edition appeared. Friedland’s Anton Chekhov’s Letters on the Short Story, Drama and Other Literary Topics and The Life and Letters of Anton Tchekov, translated and edited by S.S. Two other editions of letters also appeared in the early ’20s (Louis S. Several collections have been published in English, the earliest being Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends and Letters of Anton Chekhov to Olga Knipper, both translated and edited by the first translator of Chekhov’s plays and stories into English, Constance Garnett. Chekhov produced thousands of these artifacts-letters to his sister, his publishers, his brothers, his many friends, other writers, his director, his wife.

Luckily he lived in an age when people communicated frequently by that archaic form, the letter. Chekhov seemed to know us so well, it’s understandable that we should want to know him, too.

Chekhov a visit to friends book