Chekhov The Lady with the Dog

About The Lady with the Dog

Anton Chekhov's 'The Lady with the Dog' (1899) is widely considered the greatest short story in the Russian language and among the greatest ever written. In fewer than eight thousand words, it traces the transformation of a casual resort affair — Gurov seducing Anna in Yalta — into the only genuine love either has ever known, a love that cannot fit within their existing lives and therefore cannot end. The story has no dramatic events, no resolution, no rescue; it ends in the middle of the problem that is its subject. It is the model for modern short fiction from Joyce to Munro, and it represents the highest achievement of the form Chekhov essentially invented: the story that changes what you see without telling you what to think.