The Complete Short Novels

"The Steppe - the most lyrical of the five - is an account of a nine-year-old boy's frightening journey by wagon train across the steppe of southern Russia. The Duel, set two decadent figures - a fanatical rationalist and a man of literary sensibility - on a collision course that ends on a series of surprising reversals. In The Story of an Unknown Man, a political radical spying on an important official by serving as valet to his son gradually discovers that his own terminal illness had changed his long-held priorities in startling ways. Three Years recounts a complex series of ironies in the personal life of a rich but passive Moscow merchant. In My Life, a man renounces wealth and social postion for a life of manual labor. The resulting conflict between the moral simplicity of his ideals and the complex realities of human nature culminates in a brief apocalyptic vision that is unique in Chekhov's work."--BOOK JACKET.