`Even if he had written nothing else', Ivan Bunin wrote of Chekhov's early stories, `we would still have said that an amazing mind had flashed through Russian literature'.His youthful work immediately established Chekhov as a leading writer of both comic and serious fiction. The humorous tales have delighted Russians since the 1880s, while the many admirers of the more serious stories include James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield. In this selection, stories withpunchy endings jostle with outrageous paradies, fracical situations, the pastoral comedy of Romance with Double-Bass, and the absurdist humour of classics such as The Death of a Civil Servant. But the volume also contains some of Chekhov's finest stories about children, `non-love' stories like TheLittle Joke and The Kiss, the hauntingly lyrical Easter Night, and the chilling Let Me Sleep. This translation does full justice to the masterful range of the young Chekhov; for those unfamiliar with his early work this edition will be a revelation.