7 h 0 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What can a cook’s marriage reveal about the people who share her home?
In The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov brings families, servants, clerks and country people into view. The title story centers on a household and a cook’s marriage. Elsewhere, kitchens, country roads, drawing rooms and village shops become places where ordinary lives open onto larger questions. What people leave unsaid matters as much as what they say.
These short stories take you into Russia’s modest, crowded households in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Chekhov watches with a calm smile, letting gentle irony reveal the distance between what people believe and what a reader can see. The pace is quiet. The pleasure lies in noticing a small exchange, a shared space, or a silence.
What you’ll discover
- A cook’s place Enter the title story’s household, where a cook and her marriage stand at the center.
- Everyday places, larger questions Find kitchens, country roads and village shops opening onto questions that reach beyond their walls.
- The gentle edge of irony Notice the gap between what people believe and what their words let you see.
- Life under one roof Explore the closeness of servants and families who share a home and know its secrets.
- Room to read slowly Take one short story at a sitting, and give its quiet details your full attention.
Who will love it
For readers who like short stories you can finish in one sitting, with sharp humor, sympathy for ordinary people, children and animals, and a clear picture of daily life in nineteenth-century Russia.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Children see a puzzling grown-up world
- Poor children carry grown-up burdens
- Fathers, sons and honest confusion
- A ruined family in the old house
- Animals stand in for human folly
- A day outdoors in nature and in village life
- Pompous officials and a comic investigation
- What the stories are really about
- How Chekhov tells these small stories
Who’s who
- GrishaA solemn seven-year-old who spies through a keyhole on the cook's matchmaking and tries to understand why grown-ups marry.
- VarkaA thirteen-year-old nursemaid in a shoemaker's house who must rock a crying baby all night and is desperate to sleep.
- Vanka ZhukovA nine-year-old apprentice in Moscow who writes to his grandfather, begging to be taken home to the village.
- KashtankaA reddish mongrel who loses her carpenter master, is renamed Auntie by a stranger and learns circus tricks.
- TerentyA homeless, drunken cobbler who spends a stormy day teaching two orphans about nature and always has an answer.
- OtchumyelovA police superintendent who changes his verdict on a biting dog each time someone names its owner.
- TchubikovAn experienced examining magistrate, honest and gruff, who tries to keep his excited young assistant from jumping to conclusions.
- DyukovskyTchubikov's young assistant, who follows a single Swedish match and builds bold theories about who the murderers are.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 7 h 0 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Le nozze della cuoca e altri racconti
A nine-year-old apprentice posts a letter to his grandfather while a police chief changes his mind about a dog.
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In short
The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories gathers short pieces by Anton Chekhov, the Russian writer who died in 1904. Many were written for newspapers and magazines in the years when he wrote quickly and wrote often.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Children see a puzzling grown-up world
The collection opens with The Cook's Wedding. Grisha, a solemn boy of seven, peers through a keyhole at the kitchen. A red-haired cabman called Danilo Semyonitch sits at the meat-chopping table, drinking tea from a saucer. The old nurse, Aksinya Stepanovna, urges vodka on him while Pelageya the cook rattles pots at the stove and hides her face.
Grisha cannot see why anyone would want Pelageya to marry. Father and Cousin Verotchka's husband have gold watch chains and polished boots, and the cabman has a red nose and felt boots. The adults tease the cook at dinner, and she drops plates and oversalts the soup. Grisha thinks marriage must be terribly shameful.
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What is The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories about?
It is a collection of short stories by Anton Chekhov. Most show ordinary people in Russia, especially children, servants and animals, in small moments of daily life. The stories blend humor and pity.
Which stories are in the collection?
Besides The Cook's Wedding, it includes Sleepy, Vanka, Kashtanka, The Runaway, Oysters, Home, Boys, The Old House, A Chameleon, The Dependents, Art, The Fish and The Swedish Match, among others.
Who is Kashtanka in Chekhov's story?
Kashtanka is a young reddish mongrel who gets lost in a snowy street after following her drunken carpenter master. A stranger takes her in, calls her Auntie and trains her with a gander, a cat and a pig for a show.
The author
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
1860–1904 · Russian playwright and story writer
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian writer and physician. He was born in Taganrog and lived in Moscow and later Yalta. He wrote short stories and plays, including The Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1897), and The Cherry Orchard (1904). He died in Badenweiler, Germany.
More by Anton Pavlovič Čechov
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