In reading the new masterful translations by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky nothing seems lost or Anglicized for effect. Reading these stories, a century later one thinks how prescient Chekhov was: arch, provocative, sardonic, cryptic, and a master of the short-story form ... Chekhov’s miniature prose dramas and comedies present a gallery of unforgettable characters. Many are stylistically Russian fables with scabrous morals about the follies and failures of humans. His often-cryptic endings to his stories or plot red herrings that were an excuse to get to some humanistic and universal truths leave readers to scratch their heads, but still trying to figure out the literary puzzle.

What we have...is a compilation of B-sides. Mr. Pevear says nothing of this in his rather cagey preface ... the value of Fifty-Two Stories is that it humanizes Chekhov himself, reminding us that this often deified figure wrote a great deal of stuff that is decidedly mortal ... On the other hand, a few of Chekhov’s most brilliant and moving profiles in disenchantment appear ... most interesting are the first-rate stories that are less commonly anthologized.

Pevear and Volokhonsky, who have long lived in Paris, seem to have gone tone-deaf to a natural English; at times the language seems unpolished, with evidence of Russian phrasing seeming to override normal English syntax ... Chekhov is so great, however, that even uninspired translations can’t ruin him ... But if you have never read Chekhov and you start from the beginning of this volume, I wouldn’t blame you for wondering what all the fuss is about. Either read any other translator’s collection first...or skip to about the middle of this book, to 'The Kiss,' and read on from there.

A reader who doesn’t know Russian, of course, has no way of judging if Pevear and Volokhonsky accurately capture the tone of the original. But their direct, plainspoken approach feels particularly appropriate for Chekhov, who once wrote that 'a writer must be as objective as a chemist' ... There is certainly variety in these stories, as well as some familiar Russian types ... while Chekhov clearly relished the challenge of moving between ages and classes, the variety of his settings only highlights the continuities in his work—above all, his increasingly profound interest in comedy. Because Fifty-Two Stories is arranged chronologically...it reveals this development with fascinating clarity ... Several of the tales in Fifty-Two Stories feel like self-conscious trials of empathy, in which Chekhov the doctor tries to imagine his way into the minds of textbook 'cases' ... But the most powerful tales in Fifty-Two Stories are the ones that revolve around laughter and being laughed at.

The minor hits are represented here, the juvenilia, playful sketches and a handful of more fully realized stories, like the characteristically queasy romances 'The Kiss' and 'About Love' ... 'With what trash I began!' Chekhov once said of his early efforts, but from the beginning, you can discern his hallmarks, the shock of his disorienting last lines in which the stakes of a story are suddenly revealed ... The stories, however, seem curiously translation-proof. Even in Pevear and Volokhonsky’s occasionally stilted interpretation, they lose nothing of their vigor and sheen. They reek with life. This might be because the pleasures of reading Chekhov aren’t at the sentence level — the language is unvarnished, the metaphors simple, sturdy and often repeated, a few plots even borrowed ... It’s the watchfulness, the lack of contrivance and the economy of his fiction that still feel so shocking, so modern; the momentum he engineers, which carries his characters to the point where their defenses break down and ready-made language runs dry and they are left frighteningly exposed ... he issues with the new translation are not grievous. They’re little fish bones in the mouth, they stall and annoy. Pevear and Volokhonsky take strange pains to avoid idiomatic language, giving the prose an awkward formality ... The deeper disappointment lies in how much of Chekhov’s subtle and comic characterization is lost ... it misses some of the richness, the delicacy and irony of previous editions.

One of the greatest dangers facing a translator is producing content that reads obviously like a translation. In this collection of 52 stories by Chekhov (some never before rendered in English), celebrated translators Pevear and Volokhonsky avoid this trap, eloquently interpreting the great Russian writer's ideas. Someone unfamiliar with Chekhov could easily be convinced that the stories were originally conceived by Pevear and Volokhonsky themselves. Their attention to Chekhov's detail when describing scenery, emotional states, and the characters' inner monologs produces work that flows. Some readers may feel, however, that the flowery language somewhat overshadows the content itself ... Pevear and Volokhonsky's work isn't stiff, but it is more innovative, offering a vivid style of its own ... Though some readers may prefer a more straightforward, colloquial style, fans of heightened language will enjoy this translation, which should appeal to a wide audience. A comprehensive volume that will satisfy the needs of many libraries.

The indefatigable translating team of Pevear and Volokhonsky deliver a first-rate collection ... Encounters between young and old, rich and poor, country and city people mark these stories, though perhaps the best of them is an odd, longish yarn called 'Kashtanka,' about a young dog ... It’s a marvel of imagination. A welcome gathering of work, some not often anthologized, by an unrivaled master of the short story form.