The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories

What It's About

This collection gathers twenty-two short stories, ranging from a few pages to novella length. The title story follows a feckless hospital assistant whose horse is stolen while he shelters from a snowstorm at a tavern. The best-known piece in the volume, "Ward No. 6," follows a provincial doctor whose growing fascination with a patient in the local asylum's mental ward leads him toward his own undoing. The remaining stories move across similarly ordinary settings — hospitals, farms, theatres, roadside inns — to examine the small cruelties, self-deceptions, and occasional kindnesses of everyday Russian life.

Key Concepts

Chekhov writes with a doctor's clinical eye and a storyteller's restraint, rarely passing explicit judgment on his characters. Recurring concerns across the collection include the isolation of intellectual or sensitive people within indifferent communities, the thin line between sanity and its opposite, and the quiet erosion of principle by habit and self-interest. Endings are typically understated rather than resolved, leaving consequence to imply itself rather than announcing it.

About the Author

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian physician and writer, born in Taganrog to a family of modest means. He trained and practised as a doctor while building a parallel career as a writer, and is regarded as one of the great masters of the short story as well as a major figure in modern drama.

About this Edition

This is a 1921 translation by Constance Garnett.