To N. A. Leikin, 19 January 1886. Moscow.

1 This letter of 19 January 1886 is addressed to Nikolai Alexandrovich Leikin, editor of the St. Petersburg humor magazine "Oskolki" (Fragments) and Chekhov’s main editor and correspondent in these years. Chekhov apologizes for missing a deadline for a story, promises to send miscellaneous short pieces, and passes along several ready-made comic "themes" for filler items, including a running joke about the moon complaining it has never had a jubilee celebrated in its honor. He also touches on office gossip: a lazy contributor named Nikolka who never finishes his commissions, the financial troubles of a colleague named Agafopod, an unanswered letter to fellow writer Viktor Bilibin, and his own chronic shortage of money. The letter closes with an account of a wedding party being celebrated in the room above his, competing with a funeral wake held in the same space earlier that day, before he sends greetings to Leikin’s wife, son, and dogs.

2 Written when Chekhov was twenty-five and supporting himself largely through hackwork for the comic press, the letter is a vivid specimen of his workaday relationship with Leikin – equal parts deference, banter, and negotiation over pay and deadlines. The throwaway "jubilee" bit and the mordant juxtaposition of a wake and a wedding under the same roof ("Death and conception...") show the sketch-writer’s instinct for turning trivial daily irritations into publishable material, a habit that runs through his mature fiction as well.