To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 4 April 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 4 April 1888 to Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, the poet and an editor at "Severny Vestnik" who had become a close correspondent and something of a literary patron to Chekhov. The letter opens with publishing gossip – a falling-out between the journal and the writer Kazimir Barantsevich over rival commemorative collections – before turning warm and personal.

2 Chekhov advises Pleshcheyev, half in jest and half as his informal physician, on the best season to visit Ukraine and promises to put him on a health regimen at the dacha. He comments on the recent public resignation of the critic Nikolai Mikhailovsky, asks Pleshcheyev to pass a friendly message on to the writer Vladimir Korolenko (a separate acquaintance, not Pleshcheyev himself), and closes by declining, for lack of funds, an invitation to speak at a memorial evening for the late writer Vsevolod Garshin.