Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (29 January 1860 - 15 July 1904) was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Chekhov renounced the theatre after the disastrous reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story.
Milton Ehre is a professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Chicago. He is the author of
Isaac Babel and
Oblomov and His Creator: The Life and Art of Ivan Goncharov and co-translator of
The Theater of Nikolay Gogol.