Three Years - Hesperus Classics

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

""A maverick publisher revives literature with modern touches."

UK Kirkus review

Middle aged Alexei Laptev is looking after his sister who is dying of cancer when he falls head over heels in love with the local doctor's daughter, 22-year old Yulia. She does not love him, is not remotely attracted to him, but agrees to marry him anyway because it feels like the right thing to do, and she is too immature to think otherwise. Chekhov follows this mismatched couple over the next three years, tracing in his usual fragmentary and spare way the sufferings that life throws at them. Plans go awry, business fails, and tragedy strikes. But somehow they remain steadfast. Yulia's misery abates and Laptev's infatuation cools down to a basic respect. Together they find redemption through the shared experience of everyday family life that allows genuine love to grow between them. With Three Years - originally published in 1895 and here in a new translation by Hugh Aplin - Chekhov had intended to write the broad-canvas Russian novel. But his minimalist temperament meant he always pared down his fiction to a study of dialogue and situation, with little commentary. Three Years exemplifies the long-story form, refusing to follow novelistic possibilities and narrative sweep, therefore heightening focus on the quotidian events which it allows us to glimpse. The story becomes a reflection on the relationship between ordinariness and love, and the central characters appear all the more sharp: Laptev and Yulia are flawed, imbued with compassion, full of the best of intentions and, above all, innocents at the mercy of the flux of time and fortune. (Kirkus UK)

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