Chekhov A Major Plays

"What makes his work great is that it can be felt and understood...by anybody" said Leo Tolstoy of Chekhov's plays, which express life through subtle construction, everyday dialogue, and an electrically charged atmosphere

Chekhov's stories capture Russian provincial life in the late nineteenth century while Garnett's translations make these classic works feel as vivid as if they were written yesterday. This exclusive selection by New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm is unmissable for the enthusiast and a brilliant introduction for anyone interested in one of the nineteenth century's greatest writers

In the Twilight, the third collection of short stories compiled by Anton Chekhov himself, was his first major success and won him the prestigious Pushkin Prize when it was published in 1887. This volume represents a clear milestone in the writer's passage from the youthful Antosha Chekhonte, author of slight comic sketches, to the mature master of the short-story genre

In The Death of a Civil Servant, an administrative clerk accidentally sneezes on a hierarchical superior at the opera, which results in great embarrassment and hilarious and futile attempts at atonement. The other short stories included in this volume, A Calculated Marriage, The Culprit, The Exclamation Mark, The Speech-Maker, Who Is to Blame? and A Defenceless Creature are in the same absurdly comical vein.This short collection shows Chekhov in an amusing, playful light, poking fun at the greed, sycophancy and ignorance of his characters, with the moral detachment that also characterizes his major, serious works

In Anton Chekhov’s The Duel the escalating • animosity between two men with opposed philosophies of life is played out • against the backdrop of a seedy resort on the Black Sea coast • Laevsky is a dissipated romantic given to gambling and flirtation; he has run • off with another man’s wife, the beautiful but vapid Nadya, and now finds • himself tiring of her. The scientist von Koren is contemptuous of Laevsky; as a • fanatical devotee of Darwin, von Koren believes the other man to be unworthy of • survival and is further enraged by his treatment of Nadya. As the confrontation • between the two becomes increasingly heated, it leads to a duel that is as • comically inadvertent as it is inevitable. Masterfully translated by the • award-winnning Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Duel is • one of the most subtle examples of Chekhov’s narrative art

This collection of lesser-known early short fiction - ranging from absurd humorous sketches to psychological dramas and tragic tales - demonstrates Anton Chekhov's mastery of the genre, with stories about marital infidelity, betrayal, deception and love in its various forms. Although varying m tone and purpose, what these tales have in common is a profound and subtle understanding of the human condition, in its farcical and melancholy aspects, couched in Chekhov's trademark minimalist style

Writing towards the close of the nineteenth century, Chekhov - himself a country doctor - recorded in his fiction the symptoms of a diseased society. The seven stories collected here are a bleakly savage indictment of a society paralysed by spiritual

Tea's cold, lunch is late and the great Professor has turned out to be a fraud - for Uncle Vanya, life has gone wonky, it's gone to hell. Only one thing can save him - a glamorous woman's love. But she's not interested either. And what's worse, she's married to the Professor. Samuel Adamson new version of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya - a dark and funny exploration of cross-purposed love, bitter jealousy and a dysfunctional family - opened at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in February 2015

A secret terrorist group infiltrates the household of a government official's son, with a view to spying on the father and, ultimately, assassinating him. But the young man entrusted with the task - an ailing, world-weary nobody - seized with the purposelessness of life and a sense of his own impending death, gradually becomes disillusioned with his mission, and decides to embark on a new path which will lead him to tragedy

Предлагаем вниманию читателей сборник рассказов великого русского писателя А.П. Чехова (1860-1904). Перевод Констанс Гарнетт дополнен комментарием

Hear what I have to say about the cherry orchard, because it is mine. I say bring it down, tear it down. Smash it down and tear it down. Watch, watch. Just you watch. I will build holiday villas, as far as the eye can see. I will build a place for everyone to come and enjoy. For the future. And this will be the future. A new life. A new way of life. Here! Come now and play. Play. Play! Get the band to play. Ranyevskaya returns more or less bankrupt after ten years abroad. Luxuriating in her fading moneyed world and regardless of the increasingly hostile forces outside, she and her brother snub the lucrative scheme of Lopakhin, a peasant turned entrepreneur, to save the family estate. In so doing, they put up their lives to auction and seal the fate of the beloved orchard

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