Plays by Anton Chekhov, Second Series

About the book

This second series of Chekhov's plays brings short dramatic works together with Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. In the shorter pieces, a proposal, a celebration, or an unwanted demand can become an arena for comic escalation, revealing how quickly social forms surrender to temperament. The longer plays broaden that attention into households whose conversations circle around work, love, memory, and uncertain futures. The sisters' longing for Moscow and the threatened sale of an estate give desire and material circumstances different kinds of urgency. Chekhov's characters often speak past one another, so an apparently incidental exchange may disclose a persistent disappointment. The collection makes visible the continuity between his compact theatrical jokes and dramas in which an entire way of living has become difficult to sustain.

• Desire and inertia
• Social change
• Failed communication

Why read it

For the chance to follow Chekhov's theatrical range from compressed comic encounters to the changing worlds of two major plays.

Eight plays · translated by Julius West