Originally published 1893 | ||
Similar Anton Chekhov books, Classical Studies books | ||
The Story of an Unknown Man (Russian: Рассказ неизвестного человека, Rasskaz neizvestnovo cheloveka) is an 1893 novella by Anton Chekhov originally published by Russkaya Mysl, in Nos. 2 and 3 (February and March) 1893 issues. In a drastically revised version it was included by the author in Volume 6 of his Collected Works.
The original idea of the story came to Chekhov in the late 1880s. In a May 1893 letter he told the writer Lyubov Gurevich that he had "started to write it 1887-88 without any intention of getting it published, then dropped it." He returned to the idea in 1891, giving it originally the title "The Story of My Patient" (Рассказ моего пациента).
The novella concerns a revolutionary working under cover as a servant, and, being the only one of Chekhov's major works to be set in St. Petersburg, shares some motifs with the works of Dostoevsky.