Anton Chekhov has long been regarded as the master of the Russian short story and one of the leading exponents of the genre in world literature. This volume comprises the classic selection edited by Birkett and Struve, in Russian, here furnished with a new bibliography, and complements the stories and plays by Chekhov already available in the BCP Russian Texts series. The twelve stories, which date from 1883 to 1896, range from miniatures of comic levity such as Tolsttyi i tonkii to stories of sophisticated maturity such as Dom s mezoninom. The stories included are as follows (titles given in English translation): Fat Man and Thin Man; The Boys; A Test for Rank; A Failure; A Little Joke; The Blank Catch; The Beauties; The Student; At Yuletide; An Incident in Practice; Anna Round the Neck; The House with the Mezzanine.