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

Written in Moscow on 18 September 1889 to Ivan Leontyevich Leontyev, who wrote under the pen name I. Shcheglov – a naval-officer-turned-writer and one of Chekhov’s closest correspondents and playgoing companions in these years, addressed here with the mock-formal salutation "Mr. Theatergoer!" (g. Teatral!). The two shared an active running correspondence about theater, casting, and each other’s plays throughout the late 1880s.

The letter is a brisk round of theatrical shop talk. Chekhov responds to a now-lost letter from Shcheglov proposing a stage reworking of his own novel "The Gordian Knot" (Uzel), including a proposed cast list at Korsh’s theater; Chekhov approves in principle but warns that Shcheglov’s casting is premature since the Korsh troupe has recently changed, naming the actors he has actually seen (Medvedev, Pototskaya) and two he has not yet met (Ludvigov, Krivskaya). He then turns to his own play "Ivanov," then running at Korsh’s, reporting he has not yet seen how the actor Solonin handled the role of Gorich and promising to check and bring back a playbill. He gives an update on the novella he is finishing (almost certainly "A Boring Story" / "Skuchnaya istoriya"), calling it dismissively a "dissertation" fit only for lovers of dull reading, and destined for Demakov’s printing house in Petersburg (which printed the journal Severny vestnik, where the novella appeared). The longest paragraph is a comic account of a "revolution" among his vaudevilles: a rights dispute between the theater manager Korsh and the actress/manager Abramova over who controls performance rights to "The Bear" (Medved), with the actor Solovtsov (of Abramova’s troupe) claiming the piece by right of having performed it "1817 times" – an obviously facetious, exaggerated number, part of the letter’s comic register, not a literal count. Chekhov also notes he pulled "The Proposal" (Predlozhenie) from Goreva’s repertoire, and that the Maly Theatre is sulking because "Ivanov" is playing at a rival house, with the actor Lensky conspicuously not calling on him. The letter closes with a playful invitation and a mock "condition" limiting how much theater talk will be allowed when Shcheglov visits Moscow.