Author:Anton Chekhov,Ronald Wilks
These stories from the middle period of Chekhov's career show him exploring complex, ambiguous and often extreme emotions. Influenced by his own experiences as a doctor, 'Ward No. 6', set in a mental hospital, is a savage indictment of the medical profession. 'The Black Monk', portraying an academic who has strange hallucinations, explores ideas of genius and insanity; in 'Murder', religious fervour leads to violence; while in 'The Student', Chekhov's favourite story, a young man recounts a tale from the gospels and undergoes a spiritual epiphany. In all the stories collected here, Chekhov's characters face madness, alienation and frustration before they experience brief, ephemeral moments of insight, often earned at great cost, where they confront the reality of their existence.
Iris Murdoch is among the most gifted descriptive and narrative writers in English - and certainly one of the most entertaining.
—— New York Review of BooksA power of intellect quite exceptional in a novelist.
—— Sunday TimesShe is incapable of writing without fascinating and beautiful colour.
—— The TimesA delight for Murdoch enthusiasts.
—— The GuardianOne of the world's best living short-story writers... To say that she has made the short story her own and reinvigorated it somehow falls short - she has reinvented it
—— ObserverAlice Munro! Now that's writing
—— Margaret AtwoodThat Munro is a great writer of short stories should go without saying. She is also one of the two or three best writers of fiction (of any length) now alive
—— Sunday TimesThis superb collection...confirms Munro's place as the laureate of thwarted passion - and quite possibly the greatest short-story writer at work today
—— Daily Telegraph