In a re-worked version (now divided into two chapters and with numerous details added, with the view of making the heroine's character more distinct) it was included into Volume 9 of the Collected Works by A.P.

[1] In his Notebook I (page 47) Chekhov summarised the plot for "Anna on the Neck", then yet to be written: "A poor girl, gymnasium student, with five brothers, marries a rich state official who counts every single piece of bread, demands from her subserviance and gratitude, is scornful of her relatives... She endures all this, trying not to argue with him, so as not to fall back into destitude again.

An important person gets infatuated with her, makes her his lover... Now, seeing how her husband's chiefs fawn before her, at home she's full of disdain: 'Go away you fool!'

[3] In his October 1895 review, the writer and critic Yuri Govorukha-Otrok juxtaposed Chekhov's story with some similar plots by Alexander Ostrovsky, concluding that where the latter seeks for drama and tragedy, the former is quite content with the comical approach, which he'd developed in his early works.

Chereda), analyzed "Anna on the Neck" and "The House with the Mezzanine" along the lines of his own conception according to which Chekhov and Dostoyevsky were the masters of paeans to the 'philistine's happiness'.