My Life (novella)

My Life (Russian: Моя жизнь, romanized: Moya zhizn') is an 1896 novella by Anton Chekhov, set in a provincial southern Russian city like Chekhov's own hometown of Taganrog.

Publication history

The novella first appeared in the October–December, Nos. 10–12, 1896 issues of the Monthly Literary Supplement to Niva magazine. Revised by the author, it was included into the Suvorin-published collection Peasants and My Life, to be reproduced, unchanged, in all of its 7 editions (1897–1899). With some additional changes edits Chekhov included in into Volume 9 of his Collected Works, published in 1899–1901 by Adolf Marks.

Background

Chekhov started working upon the novella in February 1896 and finished it in the late July of that year. There was some disagreement about the title. Chekhov hated "My life" (in particular, the 'my' bit of it) and suggested that it should be called "In the Nineties" (В 90-х годах) instead. The Niva's editor Alexey Tikhonov-Lugovoy thought that was "too retro-sounding, as if it were some kind of memoirs", so the author decided against further arguing.

References

External links

• Моя жизнь. The original Russian text
• My Life, translated by Constance Garnett
• My Life public domain audiobook at LibriVox (Garnett translation)

1. My Life
2. Story of Your Life
3. Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)
4. Novella
5. Anton Chekhov bibliography
6. Anthem (novella)
7. Dean Spanley
8. Gigi (novella)
9. Carmen (novella)
10. Mathilda (novella)
11. Lolita
12. Dayar-e-Dil (novella)
13. Life Is Strange
14. René (novella)
15. Sally Bowles
16. My Son the Fanatic
17. My Bondage and My Freedom
18. Memories of My Melancholy Whores
19. George R. R. Martin
20. Kappa (novella)