To Al. P. Chekhov, 6–7 October 1887. Moscow.

1 Written in Moscow on October 6 or 7, 1887, to Chekhov’s older brother Alexander Pavlovich Chekhov ("Gusev" is Anton’s nickname for him), a journalist and proofreader at Suvorin’s newspaper Novoye Vremya in Petersburg. The letter briefly acknowledges a money order and passes on thanks for a favorable review by the critic Viktor Burenin, alongside a wry aside that Burenin need not have mixed his praise of Chekhov with mockery of the recently deceased poet Semyon Nadson.

2 Most of the letter is business: Chekhov asks Alexander to arrange a planted theatrical notice puffing his new comedy Ivanov ahead of its staging (probably with the impresario Fyodor Korsh), dictating the exact wording and instructing him to keep it to generalities rather than open praise, since its purpose is purely commercial – "it will raise the price." He closes with warm, admiring words about the writer Vladimir Korolenko, whom he had just spent three hours with, asking Alexander to relay the sentiment to Burenin and to the publisher Alexei Suvorin.