Of the two hundred stories that Anton Chekhov wrote, the twenty stories that appear in this extraordinary collection were personally chosen by Richard Ford an accomplished storyteller in his own right. Included are the familiar masterpieces - The Kiss, The Darling, and The Lady with the Dog - as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales such as A Blunder, Hush!, and Champagne. These stories, ordered from 1886 to 1899, are drawn from Chekhov's most fruitful years as a short-story writer. A truly balanced selection, they exhibit the qualities that make Chekhov one of the greatest fiction writers of all time: his gift for detail, dialogue, and humor