#196 On Official Duty

Find today’s 6647 word story here:  http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/196.html Travis review: I found today’s story about officials traveling to investigate a suicide and the distractions that follow interesting from the standpoint of naming schemes. There are 3 L prominent names: Loshadin (the village constable), Lesnitsky (the dead insurance agent) and Lyzhin (the examining magistrate who the reader …

#193 A Doctor’s Visit

Find today’s 4529 word short story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/193.html Travis review: It today’s story Korolyov, a doctor from Moscow, comes out to a small factory town to look at an ailing heiress. He rides into town with extreme prejudice and irritation. He sees the peasant class workers leading drunken, pointless lives. Korolyov hates the factory’s owner’s …

#178 The Helpmate

Find today’s 2585 word story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/178.html Travis review: This is a relatively straight forward story about a doctor, worn out with consumption and worry, who believes his wife is cheating on him and finds evidence of it written in English. The best part of the story is when the wife appears and later when the doctor, …

#176 A Head Gardener’s Story

You can find today’s 1925 word short story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/176.html Travis review: First off, I hope everybody Merry Christmas. This is a story within a story about forgiveness and tolerance. About the “faith in humanity” that a community had for the murderer of beloved man. The story starts off after a jury acquitted a man because …

#155 The Princess

Find today’s 4853 word story here:  http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/155.html. Travis review In the “A Problem” Chekhov dealt with a spoiled aristocrat who felt entitled to exploit his uncles’ credit, but he knew he was bad or a criminal as he calls himself. In this story, we have a princess who believes she is a good person and cannot …

#135 The Runaway

Find today’s 2930 word story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/135.html Travis review: Chekhov again uses a child’s innocent perspective to convey a sad, heartbreaking tale. In this case the story is framed through seven year old Pashka’s perspective. He does not understand that in the morning he will lose a limb. Although it isn’t clearly stated, it seems the …

#101 Darkness

Find today’s 1622 word story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/101.html Travis Review: If it weren’t for the title of today’s story, I would have thought that the content was intended as a groan-worthy comedy. The plot concerns a young peasant boy desperately trying to get his blacksmith brother out of jail by appealing to anybody who seemed to have …

#100 Enemies

Today’s 100th installment comes in at 5604 words and can be found here:  http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/100.html Travis Review: Today’s 100th story is a dark and brutal tale that has a noir core. It is a tale of two men suffering losses and the tunnel vision it produces in each of them. In the case of the bereaving …

#093 A Work of Art

You can find today’s 1585 word story here: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/093.html Travis Review: Today’s comic tale is similar to the journey of an American fruitcake. Specifically, it’s a gift to give that nobody wants and so it passed for another to another. In every situation, it is funny how the work of art is forced upon the recipient and …

#041 The Looking-Glass

Today’s story, the last one written between 1882-1885, has 1524 words:  http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/041.html Travis Review: Chekhov starts today’s story as if he is writing a fantasy tale using elements of Lewis Carroll or the Brothers Grimm. Nellie, “a young and pretty girl, dreaming day and night of being married,” gazes into a looking-glass. In the mirror her …