To N. A. Leikin, 12 October 1891. Moscow.

Written from Moscow on 12 October 1891 to Nikolai Alexandrovich Leikin, editor-publisher of the Petersburg humor weekly russian"Осколки" ("Oskolki,Splinters"), for which Chekhov had written extensively in the early 1880s under the "Antosha Chekhonte" byline, and one of his most frequent correspondents. This letter comes some ten months later, after Chekhov’s summer in Kaluga province and a trip abroad, and mixes personal catch-up, a batch of literary-world addresses supplied for Leikin’s autograph-collecting project, a query about the accounts for a reissued book, and an unsolicited diagnosis of Leikin’s heart palpitations.

The letter is a single continuous piece of correspondence, one sitting, one register throughout (apology for delay, literary business, medical advice, closing greetings and a postscript) are the doubled dateline (full form, then the abbreviated notation), the same convention seen elsewhere in this edition’s letter headers. opens with thanks for Leikin’s letter and his request for an autograph, and an apology for having let so much time pass without writing. reports on Chekhov’s summer of early rising and heavy writing, his trip abroad, and turns to Leikin’s request for the autographs of leading Moscow actors: Chekhov proposes a system by which Leikin sends a short letter addressed to each actor by full name and patronymic (which Chekhov supplies – Fedotova, Yermolova, Lensky, Prince Sumbatov), for Chekhov to forward. supply a run of addresses for literary and cultural figures currently in Moscow or nearby – Boborykin, Solovyov, Korolenko, Plevako, Tchaikovsky, the painter Kiselev – offered, Chekhov says, simply because they came to mind. turns to a second edition of Chekhov’s collection Motley Stories (russian"Пестрые рассказы") and an unresolved question of accounts with Oskolki and its business manager. is an extended, matter-of-fact piece of medical advice – Chekhov, trained as a physician, downplays the seriousness of Leikin’s reported heart irregularity and attributes it to sluggish bowels and flatulence rather than true cardiac trouble. closes with good wishes and regards to Leikin’s wife and son. are the signature and a one-line postscript noting a recent meeting with Suvorin.