Party and Other Stories

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• About the Author
• About the Translator
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A Literary Classic by ANTON CHEKHOV.

The Party and Other Stories by RUSSIAN author ANTON CHEKHOV is a collection of short stories published in 1917 in London, the United Kingdom, translated from the Russian language by Constance Garnett.

The title story of this collection, "The Party," portrays emotional tension and conflict between Olga and her husband, two ordinary people who are unable to communicate very well with one another. The weather is hot and humid; the party guests are vain and argumentative. After she sees her husband talking outside of the house with a guest, the lovely Lyubochka, the pregnant wife Olga becomes distraught and later goes into premature labor, delivering a stillborn child.

'AFTER the festive dinner with its eight courses and its endless conversation, Olga Mihalovna, whose husband's name-day was being celebrated, went out into the garden. The duty of smiling and talking incessantly, the clatter of the crockery, the stupidity of the servants, the long intervals between the courses, and the stays she had put on to conceal her condition from the visitors, wearied her to exhaustion. She longed to get away from the house, to sit in the shade and rest her heart with thoughts of the baby which was to be born to her in another two months.'

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), a Russian playwright and short story writer, is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. He was a key figure of early modernism in the theatre and also wrote hundreds of short stories, while working in his profession as a medical doctor. "The Party and Other Stories," is a collection of his well-known tales, translated into English language by Constance Garnett and published in London in 1917. Other stories in this collection include "Terror" (1892), "The Teacher of Literature" and "A Woman's Kingdom" (1894), and "Anna on the Neck" (1895).

• Translation by Constance C. Garnett, 1901
• Short stories