To A. S. Suvorin, 12 November 1889. Moscow.

By November 1889 Chekhov was thirty-nine years into what would be a short life but already the established author of "Ivanov" and a regular correspondent of Alexei Suvorin, the wealthy publisher of Novoye Vremya and Chekhov’s chief patron, sounding-board, and eventual estranged friend. This is a short, businesslike note dashed off in the middle of a run of letters to Suvorin from this period, covering several small matters at once rather than developing any one of them at length.

Chekhov is sending along a short comic piece for the newspaper’s feuilleton column (the "story...from the life of provincial guinea pigs" is written self-deprecatingly, as a trifle he almost let end in tragedy for its characters before relenting after a household reading). He also thanks Suvorin for notes on a play – almost certainly the comedy "The Wood Demon" (later reworked into "Uncle Vanya"), whose fourth act Chekhov himself concedes is weak; "Abramova" is Maria Abramova, a Moscow theatrical manager/actress negotiating to buy or stage the play. He then begs off a visit to Petersburg, citing the social obligation of the "343 calls" he’d have to pay – comic exaggeration typical of his letters to Suvorin about Petersburg social life. The letter closes with brief domestic color (laughter in the house), a rushed sign-off to catch the post, solicitude about Suvorin’s headache, a dry mock-clinical aside on influenza (then a topical subject – an influenza pandemic was spreading across Europe/Russia in 1889-90), and a request for proofs.