# Chekhov Becomes Chekhov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius - Hardcover

by **Bob Blaisdell** (Author)

**A revelatory portrait of Chekhov during the most extraordinary artistic surge of his life.**

In 1886, a twenty-six-year-old Anton Chekhov was publishing short stories, humor pieces, and articles at an astonishing rate, and was still a practicing physician. Yet as he honed his craft and continued to draw inspiration from the vivid characters in his own life, he found himself--to his surprise and occasional embarrassment--admired by a growing legion of fans, including Tolstoy himself.

He had not yet succumbed to the ravages of tuberculosis. He was a lively, frank, and funny correspondent and a dedicated mentor. And as Bob Blaisdell discovers, his vivid articles, stories, and plays from this period--when read in conjunction with his correspondence--become a psychological and emotional secret diary.

When Chekhov struggled with his increasingly fraught engagement, young couples are continually making their raucous way in and out of relationships on the page. When he was overtaxed by his medical duties, his doctor characters explode or implode. Chekhov's talented but drunken older brothers and Chekhov's domineering father became transmuted into characters, yet their emergence from their family's serfdom is roiling beneath the surface.

Chekhov could crystalize the human foibles of the people he knew into some of the most memorable figures in literature and drama.

In _Chekhov Becomes Chekhov_, Blaisdell astutely examines the psychological portraits of Chekhov's distinct, carefully observed characters and how they reflect back on their creator during a period when there seemed to be nothing between his imagination and the paper he was writing upon.

### Author Biography

**Bob Blaisdell** is Professor of English at the City University of New York's Kingsborough College and the author of _Creating Anna Karenina_. He is a reviewer for the _San Francisco Chronicle,_ the _Los Angeles Review of Books_, _The Christian Science Monitor_, and the editor of more than three dozen Dover literature and poetry collections, including a collection of Chekhov's love stores. He lives in New York City.

**Number of Pages:** 400

**Dimensions:** 1.59 x 9.28 x 6.34 IN

**Illustrated:** Yes

**Publication Date:** December 06, 2022

## Details

- **Price:** 29.95 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 29.95 USD | In stock |

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- Chekhov Becomes Chekhov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius - Hardcover

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