Essays on Anton P. Chekhov: Close Readings. by Robert Louis Jackson, edited by Cathy Popkin

This long awaited collection brings together in one volume the definitive essays on Anton Chekhov by renowned Chekhov scholar Robert Louis Jackson, including work that has never appeared in English as well as brand new essays published here for the first time. The volume offers a series of “slow” readings that yield insight after exquisite insight. They also model fruitful ways of discerning the rich complexity of Chekhov’s deceptively simple work. The volume’s introduction by Robin Feuer Miller captures beautifully what Jackson undertakes in his careful scrutiny of Chekhov’s text. The editor’s afterword by Cathy Popkin includes passages from the editorial correspondence in which Jackson reflects on his work and articulates his aspirations; the authorial voice thus resounds in the section Jackson expected to write himself. The editor also outlines the arguments and insights of Jackson’s remarkable unfinished essays. Finally, an appendix provides the full text of his virtually complete but still open-ended treatment of “On Official Business,” the story Jackson returned to repeatedly for decades, the previously unpublished culmination of his life’s work on Chekhov. Essays on Anton P. Chekhov: Close Readings is fully accessible to readers without knowledge of Russian while also providing complete documentation for scholars in the field.