In his short life, Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) produced a vast body of work, and is - and will remain - one of the most influential writers of all time. Novelists and short story writers invariably acknowledge him as the master of the form, while his four great late plays continue to dominate the classical theatre repertoire. Any forthcoming edition of his work is a source of excitement; any narrative about him demands to be read.
This new book, itself a wonderful find published three years ago in the US, is based on the fruits of award-winning translator Peter Constantine's discovery of sets of Moscow and St Petersburg magazines in the New York Public Library. These rare journals are certainly interesting in their own right, but most fascinatingly were also home to Chekhov's earliest writing.
Natural artist that he was, this grandson of a serf possessed a frenetic production rate few career journalists could hope to match. There was an edge of desperation about it; he was supporting his parents, siblings, lodgers and, in true Russian style, "a constant flow of visiting relatives". His living, never mind working, conditions were impossible. Critics have tended to dismiss the first part of his career as one devoted to speedy hack work. This book should counter that view.
It was the 26-year-old Chekhov who once offered the advice "write as much as you can!! Write, write, write till your fingers break!" By then, as Constantine writes in a valuable introduction, the newly qualified young doctor had already published more than 400 short stories and vignettes in popular magazines. He had also written two books of stories and a third was in progress. Aside from offering this lively, entertaining selection of previously untranslated early work, The Undiscovered Chekhov underlines exactly how much additional work exists beyond the accepted canon.
Unusually for a non-English-writing artist, his work was quickly translated: a great deal of work had been translated into English as early as 1903, the year before his death. Constance Garnett's The Tales of Tchehov, including 201 stories, appeared between 1916 and 1922; followed by The Plays of Tchehov (1923-4). English productions of his plays were staged as early as 1909 with The Seagull. The nine-volume Oxford Chekhov was published between 1964 and 1980.
At his finest in rich, dense masterworks - such as `Ward No 6', `On Official Duty', `The Lady with the Dog', `My Life', `In Exile', `Neighbours', `Gooseberries', `A Dreary Story' and `Peasants', with its inspired chaos - none can match him. Humour and humanity are part of his work, as is shrewd characterisation and adroit dialogue, yet the sheer speed and subversive, absurd comedy of many of these early pieces may surprise. `Questions Posed By A Mad Mathematician' begins with: "I was chased by 30 dogs, seven of which were white, eight grey, and the rest black. Which of my legs was bitten, the right or the left?" Best of all, though, there is no typical Chekhov story.
The deadpan, laconic tone of `From the Diary of An Assistant Bookkeeper' is brilliantly sustained from the opening lines. "May 11th, 1863. Glotkin, our sixty-year-old bookkeeper, has been drinking milk laced with cognac for his cough, and as a result he has fallen into a violent alcoholic delirium. The doctors, with their typical self-confidence, confirm that he will die tomorrow. At last I will be bookkeeper! I have been promised this position for a long time now. Kleshchev is to be tried for physically attacking an applicant who called him a bureaucrat. It seems that there will be a court case . . . [two years pass] August 3rd, 1865.
Glotkin, our bookkeeper, has a cold in his chest again. He is coughing and has started drinking milk laced with cognac. If he dies I will get his position. My hopes are high, but somewhat shaky - experience has shown that delirium tremens is not always fatal."
It takes Glotkin more than 20 years to die, far too long for the hapless narrator. Published in 1883, Chekhov was little more than 23 when he wrote it, yet it bears many of the qualities of his mature work.
Elsewhere, in one of four short sketches, Chekhov begins "They are playing Hamlet: `The fair Ophelia!' Hamlet shouts. `Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered!' `The right side of your beard has come off!' Ophelia whispers."
The slapstick comedy with drunks and dead-beats are balanced against more tragic characters destroyed by love, such as the betrayed, fallen landowner of `In Autumn'. Peasants and the middle classes walk hand-in-hand, many living lives of delusion and futility. Chekhov's genius lies in his ability to create an individual, and often an entire setting, through a stroke of deft observation. "The large hall was lit with torches and bursting with people. In the centre was the hypnotist. Despite his scrawny, unprepossessing physique, he shone, glowed and sparkled. People smiled, applauded, obeyed his every order; everyone turned pale in his presence."
Two years ago, in a perceptively candid introduction to his selection, The Essential Tales of Chekhov (Granta, 1999), using the Garnett translations, the US writer Richard Ford wrote "for all of their surface plainness, their apparent accessibility and clarity, Chekhov's stories - especially the greatest ones - still do not seem so easily penetrable by the unexceptional young. Rather, Chekhov seems to me a writer for adults . . . his wish is to complicate and compromise our views of characters we might mistakenly suppose we could understand with only a glance."
Further insight into Chekhov's motivations is revealed by Constantine in the introduction when he quotes an essay written by Thomas Mann in 1954. At that time, 50 years after his death, Chekhov was, Mann believed, undervalued because of his modesty and diffidence. "Chekhov the short story writer was convinced for far too long of his artistic unworthiness and the insignificance of his capabilities . . . To the end of his life he showed no trace of the literary grand seigneur and even less of the sage and prophet." The Russian who inspired writers ranging from Elizabeth Bowen to Raymond Carver dismissed many of his own works, such as the shorter sketches in this selection.
The Undiscovered Chekhov proves a persuasive reminder of how much there is to discover. Luckily, Constantine, a gifted, astute translator, has, through these 51 first translations, retrieved more glimpses of the complex, diverse and supreme art of a subtle, understated writer that, once read, readers tend to re-read and remember.
Eileen Battersby is the Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times
