To A. S. Suvorin, 15 December 1891. Moscow.

Dated 15 December 1891, from Moscow, to Aleksey Sergeyevich Suvorin, publisher of Novoye Vremya and Chekhov’s regular correspondent and travel host through this period.

A brisk, businesslike note ahead of a New Year visit. Chekhov settles the travel question Suvorin had raised (no need to telegraph – he will leave Moscow the evening of the 26th and arrive the morning of the 27th, having to first see his sister off to the family farm, observe his mother’s name day on the 24th, and the holiday on the 25th) and confirms he will see in the New Year at Suvorin’s house. He advises Suvorin to publish his own "frightening" fiction under his real name rather than the pen name Lavretsky, predicting a readership and a salable book. He comments on a new contributor to Suvorin’s paper, V. Vasilyev, inferring from his contact with the metropolitan on parish business that he is a propertied, capable man. He proposes a "Moscow Letters" rubric of open, volunteer-submitted correspondence for Suvorin to cull the best material from if a good feuilletonist can’t be found, and volunteers to contribute to it himself. He reports his own fees beginning to arrive and his spirits reviving, asks about lottery tickets Suvorin was to buy for him, brings ten rubles of his own, and notes with some disappointment that both "Kashtanka" and "The Duel" will miss their intended holiday publication dates. He closes with New Year’s good wishes.