To A. S. Suvorin, 19 December 1890. Moscow.

Dated 19 December 1890, from Moscow, to Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin, the publisher of *Novoye Vremya* and Chekhov’s regular correspondent, written not long after his return from the Sakhalin journey.

The letter is a single practical request. Chekhov asks Suvorin to have two books sent from his library – the collected works of Grebyonka and of Golitsynsky – to Varvara Ivanovna Ikskul at an address on Alarchin Bridge in St. Petersburg, promising they will be returned with thanks. He explains that he had promised to act as her patron, and that the books are wanted for literary-bibliographical purposes. The tone is brisk and purely transactional, without the gossip, jokes, or literary business that fill Chekhov’s longer letters to Suvorin from the same period.