The Lottery Ticket
Complete textIvan Dmitritch and his wife check a lottery result and begin to imagine that their ticket may have won. Before certainty arrives, the prospect of money transforms their thoughts about travel, property, and each other. A quiet evening becomes a rapid experiment in the effects of imagined wealth.
Continue readingAbout The Lottery Ticket
The story gives fantasy time to expose grievances ordinary contentment has kept out of sight. The hoped-for prize is shared in principle, but each person begins assigning it a different future. Follow the movement from pleasure to calculation, and notice how an unconfirmed possibility can alter a relationship before any material circumstance has actually changed.
Reading focus
Compare the couple’s separate fantasies as a possible prize reveals resentments without changing the amount of money they possess.
This reading edition contains 1,873 words in 1 original section. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: Anton Chekhov. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
IVAN DMITRITCH, a middle-class man who lived with his family on an income of twelve hundred a year and was very well satisfied with his lot, sat down on the sofa after supper and began reading the newspaper.
Contents
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Is this the complete The Lottery Ticket?
This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 1 section and 1,873 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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