The Bishop and Other Stories (1919) is a collection of short stories by Russian writer, Anton Chekhov. The title story of the collection, originally published in 1902, finds the author at his most introspective. Written while Chekhov was dealing with the long term effects of tuberculosis, a period in which he began to accept the inevitability of his own death, "The Bishop" is a meditative story that follows a dedicated man who, in the face of oblivion,...

A psychologically thrilling tale, The Black Monk delves into the murky region between fantasy and reality and asks what separates self-confidence from self-delusion. Our protagonist Andrei Kovrin, a brilliant scholar who takes a leave of absence from academia due to stress, and recuperates at the house of his former guardian Pesotsky. He grows close to Pesotsky's daughter Tatiana as they tend the orchard together. Kovrin enjoys taking long walks in...

Unique Elements • About the Author • About the Translator • A Literary Classic by ANTON CHEKHOV. The Chorus Girl and Other Stories by RUSSIAN author ANTON CHEKHOV is a collection of short stories first published in 1920 in the UNITED KINGDOM. The title story of this collection, "The Chorus Girl," tells the sad story of a woman spurned by her lover. Sneak Peak 'Kolpakov did not mind being found by the postman or Pasha's...

Ivan Chervyakov, a petty government official, while in the theatre, sneezes right upon the head of a man sitting in front of him, who happens to be a high-ranking government official. He spends the evening and the next day fawning before his sneeze victim trying to extract forgiveness, but what he succeeds instead is only bringing out a fit of rage in him. Shocked, Chervyakov returns home to lie there and die, due to the sheer stress of having endured...

FYODOR LUKITCH SYSOEV, the master of the factory school maintained at the expense of the firm of Kulikin, was getting ready for the annual dinner. Every year after the school examination the board of managers gave a dinner at which the inspector of elementary schools, all who had conducted the examinations, and all the managers and foremen of the factory were present. In spite of their official character, these dinners were always good and lively,...

A despondent young man without connections is trapped at a menial job running a small, remote train station. On New Year's Eve he shares a bottle of champagne with his wife, and when he drops it, she warns him that he has suffered an omen of ill-luck. HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the...

Ivan Dmitritch, a middle-class man who lived with his family on an income of twelve hundred a year and was very well satisfied with his lot, sat down on the sofa after supper and began reading the newspaper.

Pyotr, the Bishop at the Staro-Petrovski Convent feels weak and unwell. During the evening service, on the eve of Palm Sunday, while distributing the palm, he sees in the crowd a woman who looks like his mother whom he had not seen for nine years. For no particular reason tears start flowing from his eyes... Tired and in a kind of haze, he returns to his monastery bedroom, then learns from Father Sysoi, a lay brother, that his mother indeed had come...

The Schoolmistress and Other Stories (1920) is a collection of short stories by Russian writer Anton Chekhov. "The Schoolmistress" was written in 1897 and published in an issue of Moscow's daily newspaper, Russkiye Vedomosti. Even for Chekhov, whose work is characteristically bleak and noted for its unsparing realism, the title story of this collection is particularly hopeless. And yet, reading it alongside these other stories by a true icon of world...

Honored Sir, Father and Benefactor, a petty clerk called Nevyrazimov sitting in his office on the Easter Eve in the company of a cockroach scurrying the table, muses upon what he might do to make it in the world.