As an author Anton Chekhov receives four and a half stars.  His books of short stories are entertaining well written and thoroughly critiqued.  Anton Chekhov creates a wonderful portrayal of Russian aristocracy, before the revolution.  Each story is rich with warmth and humor, while each character is gravely flawed.  These stories might leave one with the impression that Chekhov was pessimistic about love and marriage, and even life, but they emphasize a fundamental truism about fiction, where failure is funnier than success, even though "good" love is what makes the world go around, "bad" love is more interesting to write about.  And this is expressed in almost all of Chekhov’s writings.