The Prank

An NYRB Classics Unique

The Prank is Chekhov’s personal number of one of the best of his early work, the primary ebook he put collectively and the primary ebook he hoped to publish. Assembled in 1882, with illustrations by Nikolay Chekhov, the ebook was then offered to the censor for approval—which was denied. Now, greater than 100 and thirty years later,
The Prank seems right here for the primary time in any language.

Initially of his twenties, when he was nonetheless in medical college, Anton Chekhov was additionally busily setting himself up as a prolific and well-liked author. Showing in a variety of periodicals, his shrewd, stinging, humorous tales and sketches turned a mocking eye on the mating rituals and money-grubbing habits of the center lessons, the pretensions of aspiring artists and writers, bureaucratic corruption, drunken clowning, provincial ignorance, petty cruelty—on Russian life, briefly. Chekhov was already growing his distinctive ear for spoken language, its opacities and evasions, the clichés we shelter behind and the clichés that betray us. The vigorous tales in
The Prank function each the themes and the attribute tone that make Chekhov among the many most influential and beloved of contemporary writers.