8 h 23 minAudiobook8 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
A country estate, a hunting outing, a death—and a circle of people with something to hide.
In The Shooting Party, Anton Chekhov brings you into rural Russia, among landowners, officials and country people. Estates, small towns and forests form the setting for a crime that disturbs the district. A death brings the law into life on the estate, and an inquiry puts hidden motives and broken trust under scrutiny.
This is Chekhov’s only full-length novel, an early work that draws on crime and sensation fiction. Beneath the mystery lie unshared love, wounded pride and the damage vanity can do. In a world where power belongs to a few, desire and betrayal give the inquiry a darker weight. Expect a louder, more melodramatic mood than the quiet of his later work.
What you’ll discover
- An estate under suspicion Enter a country world where a death brings private lives within reach of the law.
- Desire with a cost Follow the strain of unshared love, broken trust and pride that leaves damage behind.
- A circle of secrets Consider an inquiry among people who each have something they would rather keep hidden.
- Power in few hands Look beyond the crime to a world shaped by idleness, vanity and unequal power.
- Chekhov before the plays Meet a young writer exploring crime fiction while still finding his own voice.
Who will love it
For readers who love a crime story with a human face, a lively country setting, and a narrator who is clever, funny and never quite what he seems.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A stranger leaves a manuscript on the desk
- A lonely magistrate and his talking parrot
- The Count's estate is a house of rot
- The girl in red enters the story
- Two wild nights and a blow he cannot remember
- Pride and a girl he has hurt
- Olenka marries the bailiff
- A marriage unravels toward the shooting party
- What the book is about, and how it is told
Who’s who
- Count Alexey KarnéevA weak, rich, chattering landowner who drinks, wastes his estate and longs for entertainment.
- Olenka SkvortsovaThe forester's pretty, vain daughter in a red dress, who dreams of grandeur and a dramatic death.
- Pëtr Egorych UrbeninThe honest, heavy-set bailiff, a widower with two children, who loves Olenka and wants a quiet family life.
- Nadezhda KalininThe justice of the peace's serious daughter, who loves Zinov'ev and longs for a purpose.
- Doctor Pavel Ivanovich VoznesenskyNicknamed Screw, the kind, shabby district doctor who lends money to everyone and loves Nadia.
- Kaetan PshekhotskyA silent, dark-browed Pole who clings to the Count and watches everyone.
- Ivan Petrovich KamyshevThe rosy, graceful former magistrate who brings his manuscript to an editor and says he needs money.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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The Shooting Party
by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov · 1884
A parrot keeps screeching that a husband has killed his wife, and a summer on a Russian estate turns deadly.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A parrot screeches that a husband has killed his wife, and nobody listens. Anton Chekhov's novel The Shooting Party begins with a handsome stranger who brings a manuscript to a newspaper editor.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A stranger leaves a manuscript on the desk
The book opens in an editor's office in April 1880. A doorkeeper named Andrey announces a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman with a cockade on his cap. He is Ivan Petrovich Kamyshev, a former examining magistrate, and he wants to be published.
He is over forty, rosy, strong as a cart horse, and yet he moves as lightly as if he handled butterflies. His blue eyes look kind and pleading, and the editor would have sworn that this man could not lie. Kamyshev says he needs money, but his diamond ring and gold watch chain say otherwise. He offers a story called The Shooting Party and insists that every word happened before his eyes, and that he took part.
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What is The Shooting Party by Chekhov about?
It is a crime novel set on a Russian country estate. A bored magistrate, a weak Count and a vain girl in red are drawn together by drink and desire, and a murder follows. The story is told as a manuscript.
Who tells the story in The Shooting Party?
The story is told by a magistrate called Zinov'ev in a notebook that a stranger named Kamyshev brings to an editor. An editor frames it, so the reader gets two voices and has to decide whom to trust.
Is The Shooting Party a detective novel?
It uses the shape of a detective novel, with a crime, an inquest, suspects and a trial. It is also a study of pride, guilt and appearances, and the narrator pokes fun at crime fiction of his time.
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.
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