Anton Chekhov’s younger brother Mikhail published this book in 1933 but it has not appeared in English until now. When he wrote it, Mikhail Chekhov was nearing the end of his life, having outlived his brother by 29 years.

Anyone who loves the plays and stories of Anton Chekhov has probably treated himself to one of the excellent biographies of his all-too-brief life. (Ernest J. Simmons and Ronald Hingley are two excellent Chekhov biographers.) This memoir can’t compete with them for thorough literary analysis or even a comprehensive chronology of the writer’s life. Major events are skipped—like Anton’s marriage to Olga Knipper, Anton’s visit to Tolstoy — simply because Mikhail wasn’t there. The narrative is often rambling and effective transitions are rare.

But this memoir also provides a sense of Anton’s life that the other books cannot. Anton Chekhov was, in effect, the head of this amazing family, a family that started with nothing. Each of his several siblings had Anton’s charm and intelligence if not his drive and genius.

The father is the only unimpressive figure. The family pays homage to his eccentricities — mostly praying and singing — but they do better when he is off somewhere trying to avoid debtors’ prison. The brothers excel at arts and academic fields. The sisters become wonderful teachers. The only failure, the eldest brother, had a son, Mikhail, who became one of Russia’s great actors and a famous teacher of method acting in Russia and the United States.

Though Anton’s grandfather was a serf, Anton’s generation mixed easily with the intelligentsia, people like the composer Scriabin and publishing entrepreneur Aleksey Suvorin. What a time it was! Around every corner was another party or open house filled with fun and intellectual banter. It makes the reader realize how tragic the Russian Revolution was, not only for Russia but for the entire world. Most of these people ended up living under Lenin and Stalin during what should have been their most productive years.

We meet the self-made man who influenced Chekov’s literary career. Suvorin was also the grandson of a serf. Older than Anton, he helped the young writer get started. But Suvorin became conservative as he grew older — during the Dreyfus Affair — and that alienated Chekhov.

Brother Anton was full of surprises. One scene in particular captures Anton’s ability to transform himself. Mikhail was sunning himself in the front yard when a stranger approached. By that time Anton had been away at school for three years.

“I did not recognize him at first. I saw a tall young man, speaking in a deep voice and wearing civilian clothes. When he saw me, he said, ‘Good day, Mikhail Pavlovich,’ and only then did I realize that it was my brother Anton. He spoke in a new way, using phrases that were decisive and curt. . Working together we slowly began to improve the family’s financial situation.”

Like most of the writers of his generation, Anton was deeply moved by the misery of the lower classes in Russia. But he was determined to do more than just write about it. He embarked on a difficult journey to Sakhalin Island, a notorious prison, without any help from the government or any other organization. It cut years off his life but added depth to his later work. He conducted an exhaustive assessment of the horrible conditions and wrote a book about it.

Another important event was Anton’s famous visit to Tolstoy’s estate. All we learn is that he was never the same afterward. Whether it was his advancing illness or the effect of having met the great man, we are left to decide for ourselves.

One of the perennial questions is why Chekhov—himself a doctor — did not allow his tuberculosis to be diagnosed until it was too late. Mikhail concludes that Chekhov knew very well what was wrong with him. It seems likely that by not dealing with his illness, he was spared the treatment that would have robbed him of the years remaining to him. His creative life depended on his large family and its many friends. Admitting to having TB would have changed that life entirely.

He recognized his death sentence and dealt with it in his own way. Noted for his epiphanous stories, Chekhov underwent two remarkable changes as he matured. Whether due to his illness or his prescient nature, this member of a remarkable family, surrounded by stimulating friends, became the poet of dysfunctional families.

In his final years, he became positively mystical. “One early summer evening [Mikhail writes] we were sitting near the gate leading to the field — watching the huge red circle of the sun approaching the horizon. One of us asked, ‘Why is it that the sun setting is much bigger and redder than during the day?’ We decided the sun appeared big and red because it must be already below the horizon and the air was refracting the rays like a glass prism. We wondered whether right now there could be roaming mirages that reflect landscapes, or even animals and people, that existed thousands of years ago. Soon after this Anton had a dream. He suddenly ran out of the house rubbing his eyes. ‘I had a nightmare,’ he said. ‘A black monk came flying through the fields in my dream.’ This was the inspiration for one of his greatest and most mysterious stories, “The Black Monk.”

By dying of tuberculosis in 1904 at the age of 44, Chekhov was spared living through the Russian Revolution and under Soviet rule. But in many ways, he anticipated the despair that would attend those times. Shostakovich was haunted by “The Black Monk” and tried several times to turn it into an opera.

William L. Morris is the co-creator of the News poetry pages. He now lives and writes in Florida.

Anton Chekhov, A Brother’s Memoir

By Mikhail Chekhov,

Translated by Eugene Alper Palgrave

Macmillan

238 pages, $25