Anton Chekhov was born on January 17, 1860, in Taganrog, a dreary Russian seaport village on the Black Sea. His grandfather was an emancipated serf who had managed to buy his own freedom. His father, Pravel Yegorovitch Chekhov, a cruel and dictatorial taskmaster who made his children's lives miserable, ran a small grocery store. In 1876, that business failed, forcing the family to flee to the anonymity of Moscow to escape from creditors. Although Chekhov's fame as a dramatist rests largely on works he wrote during the last eight years of his life, his love of the theater extended back into his youth in Taganrog, where he frequented dramatic presentations at that city's provincial playhouses. Young Anton remained in Taganrog to complete his schooling before following the family to Moscow and entering that city's university to study medicine.

It was there that Chekhov began writing his sketches and stories...