This firat volume of Anton chekov's Collected Works include 11 stories written between 1860 and 1904.

they are Death of a Clerk, Chameleon, Vanka, The Grasshopper, The House with the Mansard, The Man Who Lived in a Shell and many more.

The volume opens with Maxim gorky's reminiscences about his meetings with Chekov, and in the afterword, sergie Zalygin, a well-known Soviet writer, State prize winner considers Chekov's work from the vantage point of the 1970s.