Harvey Pitcher studied at Oxford and Leningrad, and in 1963 started the Russian Department at St Andrews University. Since 1971 he has been a full-time writer. His first book to achieve widespread popularity, When Miss Emmie was in Russia (1977), was described by Paul Scott as 'a study of the whole adventure' of being an English governess before and during the Russian Revolution. This was followed by other books on the British and American communities in pre-Soviet Russia: The Smiths of Moscow (1984) and Muir & Mirrielees, about Russia's first department store (1994). Harvey Pitcher is also a leading Chekhov scholar. He is the author of a standard work, The Chekhov Play: A New Interpretation (1973) and of Chekhov's Leading Lady (1979), a portrait of Chekhov's actress wife, Olga Knipper. With fellow translator Patrick Miles he introduced English readers to the delights of Chekhov's early comic stories. Harvey Pitcher lives in Cromer on the north Norfolk coast.