The Cherry Orchard (1903) is Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov's final play. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1904, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski-who also played the role of Leonid Gayev, the bizarre and uninspired brother of Madame Ranevskaya. It has since become one of twentieth century theater's most important-and most frequently staged-dramatic works. After five years of living in...

Three Sisters (1900) is a drama in four acts by Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski-who also played the role of Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin, a philosophizing artillery officer in love with middle Prozorov sister Masha. Reviews were mixed at first, but as the play continued to run, Three Sisters became a popular success,...

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a master of the short story. The son of a former serf in southern Russia, he attended Moscow University to study medicine, writing short stories for periodicals in order to support his family. What began as a necessity became a legitimate career in 1886 when he was asked to write in St. Petersburg for the Novoye Vremya (New Times), owned by millionaire magnate Alexey Suvorin. Chekhov began paying more attention to his...

Unique Elements • About the Author • About the Translator • A Literary Classic by ANTON CHEKHOV. The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by RUSSIAN author ANTON CHEKHOV is a collection of short stories first published in 1899 in RUSSIA. The title story of this collection, "The Lady with the Dog," tells an illicit love affair between two persons married to others, thought to reflect events of Chekhov's life. Sneak Peak 'IT...

Unique Elements • About the Author • About the Translator • A Literary Classic by ANTON CHEKHOV. The Party and Other Stories by RUSSIAN author ANTON CHEKHOV is a collection of short stories published in 1917 in London, the United Kingdom, translated from the Russian language by Constance Garnett. The title story of this collection, "The Party," portrays emotional tension and conflict between Olga and her husband, two ordinary...

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a master of the short story. The son of a former serf in southern Russia, he attended Moscow University to study medicine, writing short stories for periodicals in order to support his family. What began as a necessity became a legitimate career in 1886 when he was asked to write in St. Petersburg for the Novoye Vremya (New Times), owned by millionaire magnate Alexey Suvorin. Chekhov began paying more attention to his...

The Schoolmistress and Other Stories (1920) is a collection of short stories by Russian writer Anton Chekhov. "The Schoolmistress" was written in 1897 and published in an issue of Moscow's daily newspaper, Russkiye Vedomosti. Even for Chekhov, whose work is characteristically bleak and noted for its unsparing realism, the title story of this collection is particularly hopeless. And yet, reading it alongside these other stories by a true icon of world...

Ivanov (1889) is a drama in four acts by Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Written in ten days, the play premiered in 1887 at Moscow's Korsh Theatre and was initially a failure due to its rushed composition, production issues, and significant changes made to Chekhov's script. Disappointed but far from discouraged, Chekhov reworked the play to his satisfaction, and the edited version premiered to rave reviews in St. Petersburg in 1889. The play follows...

Written in 1895 and first performed in 1896, "The Sea-Gull" is widely hailed as the first of Anton Chekhov's four most important plays. It is acclaimed for its brilliant use of subtext and remains widely studied and performed as a significant dramatic work. It is the story of the romantic and artistic conflicts between four main characters: Nina, a young, aspiring actress and the daughter of a wealthy landowner; Madame Irina Arkadina, once a great...

A psychologically thrilling tale, The Black Monk delves into the murky region between fantasy and reality and asks what separates self-confidence from self-delusion. Our protagonist Andrei Kovrin, a brilliant scholar who takes a leave of absence from academia due to stress, and recuperates at the house of his former guardian Pesotsky. He grows close to Pesotsky's daughter Tatiana as they tend the orchard together. Kovrin enjoys taking long walks in...