About the book: 2014 / "Three years spent searching, deciphering and understanding documents convinced me that there is nothing in these archives can neither discredit nor vulgarize Chekhov. The result is just the opposite: the complexity and depth of the writer’s figure become even more obvious when we are able to explain his human strengths and weaknesses,” this is the position of the book’s author, famous British literary critic, professor at the University of London Donald Rayfield. Unique in its scale, the biographical study is an exhaustive biography of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Written lightly and naturally and at the same time academically, it is essentially a real sensation.