To A. S. Suvorin, 28 February 1890. Moscow.
А. С. СУВОРИНУ, 28 февраля 1890 г. Москва.
Headnote
1 Dating and addressee. Written 28 February 1890 in Moscow to Aleksei Sergeyevich Suvorin, the newspaper and publishing magnate (editor of Novoye Vremya) who was Chekhov’s closest correspondent and patron in this period and lent him research materials for the Sakhalin project. The letter falls in the run-up to Chekhov’s departure for Sakhalin (he left Moscow in April 1890), during the period when he was borrowing and returning books and journals from Suvorin’s library to prepare for the journey.
2 Chekhov acknowledges receipt of books and Krusenstern’s atlas (research material likely tied to the Far East/ Sakhalin voyage — Adam Johann von Krusenstern led Russia’s first circumnavigation and his atlas would have been relevant reference for a journey to Sakhalin), lists further items he is returning via a shop (with instructions to route them through a servant, "Vasily," to a "Konstantin Fyodorovich"), reports he is sending back Krusenstern’s volume 2 and will send the atlas once he has finished making a copy of it, asks for more journals, complains half-humorously about the tedium of his reading/preparation work ("cockroaches in my brain"), remarks on the onset of spring and his regret at leaving it behind, notes that the fish on Sakhalin are good but there is no alcohol there, asks whether Suvorin will come to Moscow in early April for rehearsals of a play by Ippolit Maslov, and closes with a benediction and signature.
5 it carries a full dateline, an epistolary body addressing Suvorin directly with requests and news, a closing benediction, and a full signature ("Ваш А.Чехов" / "Yours, A. Chekhov"). No structural or coherence concerns — the source file is a single, coherent dated letter