Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian writer of short stories and plays and a physician who said that medicine was his lawful wife and literature his mistress. Born in Taganrog, the grandson of a serf, he wrote comic sketches to support his family while studying medicine in Moscow, then developed the understated, open-ended short story that bears his name, in pieces such as The Lady with the Dog, The Black Monk and Ward No. 6. His last plays, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, were staged by the Moscow Art Theatre and remade modern drama. He died of tuberculosis at forty-four.