''My Life'' () is an 1896 novella by

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

, set in a provincial southern Russian city like Chekhov's own hometown of

Taganrog Taganrog (, ) is a port city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on the north shore of Taganrog Bay in the Sea of Azov, several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don (river), Don River. It is in the Black Sea region. Population: Located at the site of a ...

.James N. Loehlin ''The Cambridge Introduction to Chekhov'' 2010 1139493523 p.92 "In addition to “The Steppe” and “The Duel” (1888 and 1891), his longest works include three stories from the Melikhovo period: “The Story of an Unknown Man” (completed in 1893), “Three Years” (1895), and “My Life” (1896). ...... “My Life” focuses on the dreary provinciality of a southern Russian city very like Chekhov's hometown of Taganrog. In their different milieux, all three stories ask, but don't clearly answer, questions about how Russians should live their lives."

Publication history

The novella first appeared in the October–December, Nos. 10–12, 1896 issues of the Monthly Literary Supplement to ''

Niva Niva or NIVA can refer to: Places * Niva (river) in the Murmansk Oblast, Russia * Nivå, a town in Denmark * Nivå station, railway station in Denmark * Niva (Prostějov District), a village in the Czech Republic * Niva, Iran, a village in Kurdista ...

'' magazine. Revised by the author, it was included into the

Suvorin Aleksei Sergeyevich Suvorin (; , Korshevo, Voronezh Governorate – , Tsarskoye Selo) was a Russian newspaper and book publisher and journalist whose publishing empire wielded considerable influence during the last decades of the Russian Empi ...

-published collection ''

Peasants A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising f ...

and My Life'', to be reproduced, unchanged, in all of its 7 editions (1897–1899). With some additional changes edits Chekhov included in into Volume 9 of his Collected Works, published in 1899–1901 by

Adolf Marks Adolf Fyodorovich Marx (; 2 February 1838 – ), last name also spelled Marcks and recently Marks, known as A. F. Marx, was an influential 19th-century German publisher in Russia best known for the weekly journal ''Niva (journal), Niva''. He obt ...

.Muratova, K. D. Commentaries to Моя жизнь. The Works by A.P. Chekhov in 12 volumes.

Khudozhestvennaya Literatura Khudozhestvennaya Literatura () is a publishing house in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The name means "fiction literature" in Russian. It specializes in the publishing of Russian and foreign works of literary fiction in Russia. History It was founde ...

. Moscow, 1960. Vol. 8, pp.516-524

Background

Chekhov started working upon the novella in February 1896 and finished it in the late July of that year. There was some disagreement about the title. Chekhov hated "My life" (in particular, the 'my' bit of it) and suggested that it should be called "In the Nineties" (В 90-х годах) instead. The ''Niva''s editor Alexey Tikhonov-Lugovoy thought that was "too retro-sounding, as if it were some kind of memoirs", so the author decided against further arguing.

References

External links

''Моя жизнь''
The original Russian text * ''My Life'', translated by

Constance Garnett Constance Clara Garnett (; 19 December 1861 – 17 December 1946) was an English translator of nineteenth-century Russian literature. She was the first English translator to render numerous volumes of Anton Chekhov's work into English and the ...

* (Garnett translation) 1893 short stories Novellas by Anton Chekhov Works originally published in Russian magazines {{1890s-story-stub