To A. S. Suvorin, 10 February 1887. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 10 February 1887 to Alexei Suvorin, the wealthy publisher of "Novoye Vremya" and Chekhov’s most important literary patron and correspondent at this period, this letter mixes a small literary favor with an account of Chekhov’s own low spirits and a report on an odd form of minor local celebrity: people pestering him to use his connection to Suvorin to get them a discount or priority order on Suvorin’s newly issued edition of Pushkin.

2 The letter opens with Chekhov forwarding a manuscript by a minor amateur writer, "Madame Kiseleva" (a lady landowner and family friend of the Chekhovs), suggesting her story might suit Suvorin’s Saturday supplement. Chekhov then apologizes for having written little that January, citing illness, low spirits, and the burden of family ("domestic circumstances"), and mentions plans to travel south in the spring to recover his creative energy. The bulk of the letter concerns the roughly forty doctors, teachers, and strangers who have asked Chekhov to intercede with Suvorin on their behalf for subscriptions to his Pushkin edition – a vivid glimpse of Chekhov’s already-established reputation as a man with useful connections, and of the petty transactional favors that this reputation obliged him to broker.