本卷收入契诃夫创作晚期1896年至1903年创作的中短篇小说21篇，这些作品充满鲜明的民主主义倾向和强烈的道德激情，具有极大的艺术概括力，深刻暴露了现实生活中的种种不合理现象。脍炙人口的短篇小说《套中人》描绘了一个不敢接触实际、害怕新生事物、因循守旧的希腊语教师别里科夫，赋予主人公两句口头禅，惟妙惟肖地刻画出"套中人"性格，讽刺和鞭挞了别里科夫之流以及造成这种畸形性格的反动时代。《带小狗的女人》叙述了两个真正相爱的恋人遭受的侮辱和痛苦，在充满伪善和虚假的社会里他们像是一对被分别关着的"笼中鸟"，没有出路。小说强烈地感动着读者，正如高尔基所说："您用您的篇幅不大的短篇小说在做着一件意义巨大的事情——唤起人们对浑浑噩噩、半死不活的生活的厌恶。" (About 21 short and medium-length novels composed by Cheknov in 1896-1903 are collected in this volume. These works reflect distinctive democratic tendencies and strong moral passion, with great art generalizing and deeply exposes various unreasonable phenomenon in real life. The classic short novel The Man in a Case describes Prokofy, a teacher of Greek who dares not to contact the real life, fears new things and follows the beaten track. The protagonist was offered with two pet phrases, which vividly showed the character of the man in a case, mocking and blamed the abnormal personality of Prokofy and the times causing such character. In The Lady with the Dog, a pair of affectionate lovers suffered insult and pains. They are just like a pair of birds in a case in this society full of hypocrisy and fake. There are no ways out for them. Readers are moved by the novel. Just like Gorky said, your short stories are really significant for people, arousing their dislike of drifting and half-dead living.)