Written during Chekhov`s late twenties and early thirties, these stories are the work of a young writer in dialogue with his masters: Tolstoy, Gogol, and Furgenes. The stories-"The Steppe," "Panpipes," "The Kiss," "Verochka," "The Name-day Party," "A Dreary Story," "Gusev," and "The Duel"-deal with good and evil, depicting heroes, villains, and monsters with a lightness of touch and a lack of ambiguity that is largely absent from Chekhov`s later work.