RUSSIAN - Bloomsbury Auctions

Lot 29. CHEKHOV, Anton (1860-1904).
Povesty i razskazy [Stories and Tales]. Moscow: E. F. Tsipelson, 1894. 287 pp. 8vo (190 x 130 mm). Publisher’s navy
blue cloth, spine and front board lettered in gilt and decoratively stamped in black, rear board blind stamped in
floral motif. Condition: slight rubbing to spine edges and extremties, corners bumped, dampstain at lower left on
front; neat repairs at gutters to pp. 279-282. Provenance: Semen Ilich Bychkov.
exceptional signed presentation copy of an important collection of chekhov’s short stories.
Bychkov worked as a waiter at the Grand Hotel in Moscow where Chekhov stayed. “I’d been a factory worker, a yard
man, worked in a puppet theatre, in pantomime and done everything,” Bychkov recalled. “Of all the people staying
at the hotel only Anton Chekhov spoke to me simply, man-to-man, without pride, with none of that looking down
on you. And he gave me his writings, I started reading and at that minute a new light illuminated me…I loved him
fervently with all my soul” (Rayfield p. 391). Bychkov asked the writer to be godfather to his child and the writer accepted.
Chekhov warmly inscribed this copy in fond memory to Bychkov on March 25, 1897. The collection contains
several of the author’s best known short stories: “Babe tsarstvo” [“A Woman’s Kingdom”], ”Poprygunya” [“The
Grasshopper”], “Chernyi monakh” [“The Black Monk”], “V ssylke” [“In Exile”], “Skripa Rotshilda” [“Rothschild’s
Fiddle”] and “Student” [“The Student”]. See Literaturnoe nasledstvo: Chekhov p. 268.
$20000 – $30000
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