Inspired in his boyhood to learn Russian after reading the Catherine Garnett translation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Ronald Hingley later devoted his life to the study of Russian literature and political history. In 1975 Hingley described himself as "a teacher by trade and an academic (not a professional) author." Although his scholarly activity has embraced literary criticism, translation, political analysis, and the examination of broad literary trends, Hingley's biographical work is perhaps most worthy of note. His major effort in biography, and certainly his best-known work, is A New Life of Anton Chekhov (1976), a major revision of Chekhov: A Biographical and Critical Study (1950; revised 1966). Both works received critical praise for their prodigious use of primary and secondary sources, many of which had been made newly available for release by the Soviet government. Moreover, Hingley's perceptive analyses in both the original and revised biographies were enhanced by use...