In 1899, Anton Chekhov was dealing with financial stress. He bought a plot of land in Yalta in installments, built a house, and continued to support his younger sister and brothers. Due to the deterioration of health and exacerbation of tuberculosis, he was forced to seek treatment abroad. In the end, Chekhov agreed to an urgent sale of his works to the publisher Adolf Marx, who wanted to publish a complete collection of the writer’s works.
In his letters, Anton Chekhov admitted to his friends,
The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov. Volume 15
Creation period
1903
Place of сreation
St. Petersburg, the Russian Empire
Dimensions
20,3x13,5 cm
Technique
paper, cardboard, leatherette; typographic printing
Exhibition
0
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#8
I’ve sold my works to Marx for 75,000 rubles. The income from the plays will accrue to me and subsequently to my heirs…
#10
I have sold Marx my works for time immemorial and have already sent him material for the first volume, a whole pood of my ‘lycée period’ stories that were not included in any of the collections. They are as tiny as smelts.
#11
I sold Marx my past, my present, and my future; I did this, my friend, so as to put my affairs in order.
#9
Marx decided to publish the complete works of Chekhov in 16 volumes as a supplement to his magazine “Niva” (“Grainfield”). Marx and Chekhov discussed the size, design, and content of volumes for three years. Chekhov wrote,
#12
As for the extent of the volumes, it is also my wish that the material be distributed as evenly as possible, that the volumes be of the same size, and that the type of the collection be determined now and not require changes in the future when new material arrives. The extent and size of the book is entirely up to you; I have only one opinion on this: the thicker the book, the better.
#13
Naming each volume was also problematic. From the very beginning, Marx decided to sell Chekhov’s works not only in their entirety but also as separate books; therefore, he wanted to give each one an attractive title. The two series were also supposed to have covers of different designs: the books from the “complete works” were numbered, and the ones sold separately only had titles, without the indication of volume number.
Marx’s edition was the second and last lifetime collection of Anton Chekhov’s writings. It was published in 1903, a year before the writer’s death, and continued to be printed until 1916. The fifteenth volume contains the first half of “Sakhalin Island”, while the rest of the chapters appeared in volume 16. #15
The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov. Volume 15
#14
Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
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The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov. Volume 15
Creation period
1903
Place of сreation
St. Petersburg, the Russian Empire
Dimensions
20,3x13,5 cm
Technique
paper, cardboard, leatherette; typographic printing
Exhibition
0
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