It's the birthday of writer Anton Chekhov, born in Taganrog, Russia (1860). His father came from a long line of serfs, but his grandfather had bought the family's freedom before he was born. When Chekhov was 16, his father's grocery store went out of business. The whole family left for Moscow, except Anton, who was left behind to finish school and earn money. He lived in the corner of a house and scraped out a living by tutoring family friends. He later called his adolescence a "never-ending toothache." After he graduated from high school, he left for Moscow to study medicine. He only started writing as a way to make some extra money that he could send to his family. By the time he was in his 20s, he was the primary financial support for his entire family, so he just wrote as quickly as he could what he thought the newspapers wanted. He also wrote comic calendars, questionnaires, theater reviews, and other journalism on top of his considerable medical responsibilities. In 1884, Chekhov finally got his medical degree and began his career as a doctor. He set up free clinics in provincial Russia, and often treated peasants whose poverty reminded him of his childhood. He wouldn't ask for very much money in return for his care. He was still writing short sketches for newspapers in his spare time when, in 1885, he took a trip to St. Petersburg and suddenly realized that members of the literary society there had been reading his stories for months, and they considered him an important new writer. He wrote to his brother, "Formerly, when I didn't know that they read my tales and passed judgment on them, I wrote serenely, just the way I eat pancakes; now, I'm afraid when I write." But though it scared him to think that he had a real audience, it was only then that Chekhov decided to start writing seriously. He went on to help invent the modern short story. He managed to produce more than 600 stories in his lifetime, and he was one of the first writers to use short stories to explore characters, rather than events. And he was also one of the first not to use surprise endings. Chekhov often wrote about people with glaring moral flaws, like prostitutes and criminals, but he didn't condemn their actions. He said, "The artist should not be the judge of his characters and what they talk about, but only an impartial witness. ... A writer should be as objective as a chemist." After five years of relative literary success, Chekhov decided to get away from the big city, and he set out on a trip to visit an island penal colony in Siberia to provide medical service and help advocate for prison reform. Over the course of a few months, he managed to interview all 10,000 of the prisoners, and when he got home he wrote a nonfiction book about the experience that was the longest book he ever published in his lifetime. But the trip ruined his health and exacerbated his tuberculosis. He moved to Yalta, hoping that living on the coast would improve his condition, and it was there that he wrote some of his most famous short stories, including "The Lady with the Dog." Anton Chekhov said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out."