本卷收入契诃夫创作于1880年至1882年的短篇小说39篇。1880年在幽默刊物《蜻蜓》上发表短篇小说《写给有学问的邻居的信》和幽默小品《在长篇小说和中篇小说等作品里最常遇见的是什么？》，标志着作家文学生涯的开端。在前一个作品中，年轻作家嘲笑一个不学无术而又自命不凡的地主，在后一个小品中表露了作者对盛行于当年文学界的陈词滥调的不满。 (39 short stories created by Chekhov from 1880 to 1882 are collected in this volume. His short story A letter to the a knowledgeable neighbor and humorous story What is the most commonly encountered in full-length novel and medium-length novel published on humorous magazine Dragonfly in 1880 marked the beginning of the literary career. In the first work, the young writer laughed at an ignorant and incompetent landlord while in the second work, the writer expressed his dissatisfaction of the clichés in the literary world. )