The first of Chekhov's works to be published in a serious literary journal, 'The Steppe', with its masterly account of a spectacular thunderstorm, signifies his maturation as a writer of short stories. While the majority of his tales focus on the privileged classes, this selection shows that Chekhov never forgot his origins as the son of a failed provincial grocer, and characters as varied as the brutal soldier in 'Gusev', the downtrodden old con...
