The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91 (Paperback, New Ed)

Written during Chekhov's late 20s and early 30s, these dazzling stories are the work of a young writer in dialogue with his masters: Tolstoy, Gogol and Maupassant. They are stories which deal with good and evil, depicting heroes and villains and monsters with a lightness of touch and a lack of ambiguity which is largely absent from the stories Chekhov wrote following traumatic and defining visit to the penal island of Sakhalin to investigate prison conditions in 1890.