A Russian author, playwright, and physician, Anton Chekhov is widely considered one of the best short-story writers of all time. Having influenced such writers as Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and James Joyce, Chekhov's stories are often noted for their stream-of-consciousness style and their vast number. Raymond Carver once said, "It is not only the immense number of stories he wrote—for few, if any, writers have ever done more—it is the awesome frequency with which he produced masterpieces, stories that shrive us as well as delight and move us, that lay bare our emotions in ways only true art can accomplish."

In The Complete Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume 1: 1882–1885, Blackstone has compiled forty-one of these delightful short stories:

A Living Chattel Joy At the Barber's An Enigmatic Nature A Classical Student The Death of a Government Clerk The Trousseau A Daughter of Albion An Inquiry Fat and Thin A Tragic Actor The Bird Market A Slander The Swedish Match Choristers The Album Minds in Ferment A Chameleon In the Graveyard Oysters The Marshal's Widow Small Fry In an Hotel Boots Nerves A Country Cottage Malingerers The Fish Gone Astray The Huntsman A Malefactor The Head of the Family A Dead Body The Cook's Wedding In a Strange Land Overdoing It Old Age Sorrow Oh! The Public! Mari d'Elle The Looking-Glass