To Al. P. Chekhov, 24 September 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 24 September 1888 to Chekhov’s elder brother Alexander Pavlovich Chekhov, who also wrote and published under the Chekhov name. It follows directly on the incident described: the publisher Alexei Suvorin, travelling near Simferopol and distracted by his young son’s grave illness, had read Alexander’s story "The Letter" in "New Times," disliked it, and dashed off an angry note to Alexander accusing him of "usurping" the family name. Suvorin then came straight to Chekhov in Moscow, pacing and near tears, to confess the letter had been an unfair outburst.

2 Chekhov reports Suvorin’s visit and self-reproach, then formally lays out, in a numbered list, why Alexander has every right to publish and sign as "Al. Chekhov": authorship and signature are a writer’s own business; the two brothers had already agreed the shared surname causes Chekhov no harm; and Suvorin’s own son, asked directly, said the editorial office welcomed more bylines reading "Chekhov" in the paper, whichever brother wrote them. Chekhov adds a wry aside comparing the case to Alphonse Daudet’s complaints about his less-known brother Ernest, dismisses the whole matter as not worth a "Sanhedrin," reflects briefly on mortality and not taking one’s own literary reputation too seriously, and closes by lumping the gossips who might make something of two same-named Chekhovs together as "Burenins and the rest of the smut-mongers" – Viktor Burenin being the "New Times" critic already established elsewhere in this correspondence as a scandal-prone columnist. The letter ends with sympathy for Suvorin’s genuine distress and a brief note that the family is well.

3 No graphic content; the letter’s one sharp phrase is "Burenins and the rest of the smut-mongers" (Бурениных и прочих похабников) in section 14 – a real insult (похабник carries a sense of "smut-peddler" or "foul-mouthed gossip") aimed at critics who might turn the two Chekhovs’ shared surname into scandal-sheet material; translated at full force rather than softened, per policy. "Suvorin" (sections 4-5, 11, 15) is the elder Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin, Chekhov’s publisher; "Suvorin-fils" (section 8, rendered as in the Russian, which itself borrows the French tag) is explicitly distinguished as his son, who speaks for the editorial office in section 8-9 – do not conflate father and son. Alphonse Daudet and his brother Ernest Daudet (section 11) are the French writer and his own, less prominent journalist brother, cited purely as a parallel case of one sibling outshining another; they have no other connection to the Chekhovs. "An. Chekhov" and "Al. Chekhov" in section 14 are Anton (the letter-writer, signing with the standard abbreviation of his own first name) and Alexander (the addressee) respectively – kept as the bare initials Chekhov uses, since the whole point of the sentence is how interchangeable the two abbreviations look in print. The story under dispute, "Письмо" ("The Letter"), is Alexander’s own work, not Anton’s; it should not be confused with the present letter.