To I. L. Leontyev, 18 February 1889. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 18 February 1889 to Ivan Leontyevich Shcheglov (pen name of Ivan Leontyevich Leontyev,, if established elsewhere in the corpus), the writer and close friend Chekhov addresses here by the nickname "Jean." Shcheglov had recently sent Chekhov a copy of his own play, "The Gentlemen Theater-Lovers" ("Господа театралы"), and had written consoling him over the mixed Petersburg reception of Chekhov’s own play "Ivanov."

2 The letter opens with a dateline (1) repeated in short form (2), then thanks Shcheglov for the gift copy of his play (3), one copy of which Chekhov passed to his schoolmaster brother (Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov) and the other kept for his own "public" library – so called, he jokes, because the public plunders it. Chekhov then turns (4) to Shcheglov’s attempt to console him over "Ivanov," insisting at length and half self-mockingly that he is entirely at peace with the play’s reception, indifferent to both praise and mockery reported from Petersburg, since none of it reaches him in Moscow. He reflects further (5) on the emptiness of success and ovations, and (6) on his longing for summer in the country, professing himself a "Cincinnatus" rather than a "Potemkin" – content with hay and fishing over reviews and applause. A mock dissertation title follows (7), joking that its subject is inoculating Shcheglov himself against love of the theater, before Chekhov turns serious advice (8) urging Shcheglov not to be cowed by the critic Burenin, and (9) urging him more broadly to abandon the stage for fiction, on the grounds that a fiction-writer can only enter the ranks of specialist playwrights as a "general" or not at all. A lighter coda (10–11) allows for occasional playfulness but warns against self-important moralizing, immediately undercut by Chekhov noting, with mock alarm, how much of a moralist he himself has become. The letter closes (12) with Chekhov heading off to a ball and a blessing, the signature (13), a postscript on the pricing of Shcheglov’s play (14), and closing regards to Shcheglov’s wife and from Chekhov’s family (15).