To I. L. Leontyev, 11 November 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 11 November 1888 to Ivan Leontyev, who wrote under the pen name Ivan Shcheglov and whom Chekhov addressed by the nickname "Jean" (here in its German-joking form "Johann"), this letter belongs to the same run of correspondence as the letters to Shcheglov of 14 September, 2 November, and 7 November. It was written the same day as a letter to Alexei Suvorin that covers the same casting mix-up over "The Bear" from Chekhov’s side of the correspondence, and closes with Chekhov’s own joking list of "animal" play titles then on the Petersburg and Moscow stage.

2 Chekhov opens by explaining a scheduling muddle: he had already promised the actress Maria Savina the rights to stage his one-act farce "The Bear" before he learned that the actress Abarinova also wanted it (for her benefit performance, per the companion letter to Suvorin of the same date), and he tells Shcheglov to withdraw the play diplomatically, citing his own reluctance to debut on the imperial stage with a vaudeville, rather than let the confusion embarrass anyone. He then refuses to be talked out of his contempt for the contemporary theater, citing the playwright Karpov’s boast that his poorly received "Crocodile Tears" had needled "green liberals," and pivots to a sharp defense of Shcheglov’s prose against Shcheglov’s own self-deprecating remark that he writes "bad stories" only out of financial need – insisting none of Shcheglov’s plays have matched the quality of his story "The Gordian Knot" or his war sketches. A short item reports that the actress Glama has reconciled with someone (left unnamed), followed by closing wishes that play on Shcheglov’s pen name ("sparrow-nerves"), the signature "Your Antoine," and a one-line postscript promising to write separately about placing Shcheglov’s play "The Theatrical Sparrow." The letter closes with Chekhov’s own list of six "animal" play titles then current on the stage, capped with the exclamation "what a menagerie!"