To A. S. Suvorin, 17 December 1888. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 17 December 1888 to Alexei Suvorin, this letter is Chekhov’s detailed casting report on Suvorin’s play "Tatyana Repina," sent as a follow-up to a telegram, interleaved with a run of short items of news and requests. It falls two days before the Petersburg premiere of Chekhov’s own play "Ivanov" at the Alexandrinsky Theatre on 19 December 1888, and shows Chekhov himself at work revising that play in these same days.

2 Chekhov reports on his meeting with the Maly Theatre actress Nikulina, who arrived looking half-asleep and was startled to learn she had been cast as Kokoshkina rather than the title role of Repina (3); Chekhov told her bluntly that without her the part of Kokoshkina would go unfilled (4). Nikulina claims no one else can play Tatyana, reporting that Fedotova has declined the part and Ermolova is tied up with two other productions soon to open (5), and passes along requests that two supporting roles go to the actors Musil-and-Gorev and Lensky (6). Chekhov then editorializes sharply on actresses’ vanity and Nikulina’s possible motive for wanting the Tatyana role for herself (7), and warns Suvorin not to get his hopes up about Fedotova’s Kokoshkina, predicting she will play it worse than Nikulina would (8). A run of short items follows: a request to pass a rejected story by the writer Yezhov to Chekhov’s sister, and news that the steamer "Dir" – on which Chekhov and companions had sailed to Poti earlier that year – has been wrecked off the southern Crimean coast (9); a report that the newspaper editor Khudekov has telegraphed asking for a 200-line Christmas story at a fee of 100 rubles, which Chekhov says he will try to knock out (10); a one-line progress report on "Ivanov," which Chekhov says is coming along smoothly in prose but is not proving effective as stagecraft, with the first three acts judged acceptable (11); and an offer to be at Suvorin’s disposal for whatever is needed next (12). The letter closes with an extended list of greetings to Suvorin’s household and circle (13), a closing wish for good health (14), and the signature (15).