Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov

Reading notes

• To M. P. Chekhov, 1879. Taganrog. §3 Goncharov

  Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov, novelist and author of Oblomov, recommended here for his travel account The Frigate Pallada.

• To A. S. Suvorin, May 1889. Sumy. §4 I'm reading Goncharov, and I'm amazed

  Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov, novelist, author of "Oblomov" (1859); this passage is a striking, uncharacteristically extended piece of literary criticism for a letter of this period, formally "striking Goncharov from the list of my demigods."

• To A. S. Suvorin, 4 May 1889. Sumy. §4 very like Goncharov

  Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov, author of "Oblomov," invoked here as a temperamental comparison -- Chekhov fears he shares Goncharov's low-key, undramatic creative temperament -- not as a correspondent or addressee in this letter.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 14 May 1889. Sumy. §9 Goncharov's commandment, printed in the "Vestnik Evropy,"

  Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov, the novelist, invoked for a supposed "commandment" against early publication of private correspondence, reported by Chekhov skeptically ("though I don't understand why it shouldn't be broken") rather than endorsed as a real prohibition he intends to follow.