Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith
A Penguin Classics Hardcover

From a writer widely considered to be one of greatest ever of the form, Anton Chekhov's short stories offer unforgettable character, crystalline expression, and deep, powerful mystery. Collected here are five of his very best tales, The Lady with the Little Dog, The House with the Mezzanine, and the trilogy The Man in the Case, Gooseberries, and About Love.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring their unmatched talents to The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, a collection of thirty of Chekhov's best tales from the major periods of his creative life.

Considered the greatest short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as The Huntsman and the tour de force A Boring Story, to his best-known stories such as The Lady with the Little Dog and his own personal favorite, The Student, Chekhov's short fiction possesses the transcendent power of art to awe and change the reader. This monumental edition, expertly translated, is especially faithful to the meaning of Chekhov's prose and the unique rhythms of his writing, giving readers an authentic sense of his style and a true understanding of his greatness.

If any writer can be said to have invented the modern short story, it is Anton Chekhov. It is not just that Chekhov democratized this art form; more than that, he changed the thrust of short fiction from relating to revealing. And what marvelous and unbearable things are revealed in these Forty Stories. The abashed happiness of a woman in the presence of the husband who abandoned her years before. The obsequious terror of the official who accidentally sneezes on a general. The poignant astonishment of an aging Don Juan overtaken by love. Spanning the entirety of Chekhov's career and including such masterpieces as Surgery, The Huntsman, Anyuta, Sleepyhead, The Lady With the Pet Dog, and The Bishop, this collection manages to be amusing, dazzling, and supremely moving--often within a single page.

Indulge in the literary brilliance of Anton Chekhov with The Greatest Short Stories of Anton Chekhov: A Collection of Fifty Stories. This captivating anthology showcases Chekhov's unparalleled mastery of the short story form, offering fifty timeless tales that delve into the complexities of human nature.

• A comprehensive collection of Anton Chekhov's finest short stories.
• Fifty thought-provoking narratives that explore the human condition.
• Exquisite storytelling with nuanced characters and vivid settings.
• Insightful examination of universal themes such as love, loss, and human relationships.
• An essential addition to any lover of classic literature's bookshelf.

Anton Chekhov, widely hailed as the supreme master of the short story, also wrote five works long enough to be called short novels-here brought together in one volume for the first time, in a masterly new translation by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

The Steppe--the most lyrical of the five--is an account of a nine-year-old boy's frightening journey by wagon train across the steppe of southern Russia. The Duel sets two decadent figures--a fanatical rationalist and a man of literary sensibility--on a collision course that ends in a series of surprising reversals. In The Story of an Unknown Man, a political radical spying on an important official by serving as valet to his son gradually discovers that his own terminal illness has changed his long-held priorities in startling ways. Three Years recounts a complex series of ironies in the personal life of a rich but passive Moscow merchant. In My Life, a man renounces wealth and social position for a life of manual labor.

The resulting conflict between the moral simplicity of his ideals and the complex realities of human nature culminates in a brief apocalyptic vision that is unique in Chekhov's work.

Chekhov's worldwide reputation as a dramatist rests on five great plays: Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. All are presented in this collection, taken from the authoritative Oxford Chekhov, in Ronald Hingley's acclaimed translation. Hingley has also written an introduction specifically for this volume in which he provides a detailed history of Chekhov's involvement in the theater and an assessment of his accomplishment as a dramatist.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Five masterful dramatic works from one of the world's best-loved playwrights, including The Seagull--now a major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan, Elizabeth Moss, and Annette Bening

At a time when the Russian theatre was dominated by formulaic melodramas and farces, Chekhov created a new sort of drama that laid bare the everyday lives, loves and yearnings of ordinary people. Ivanov depicts a man stifled by inactivity and lost idealism, and The Seagull contrasts a young man's selfish romanticism with the stoicism of a woman cruelly abandoned by her lover. With 'the scenes from country life' of Uncle Vanya, his first fully mature play, Chekhov developed his own unique dramatic world, neither tragedy nor comedy. In Three Sisters the Prozorov sisters endlessly dream of going to Moscow to escape the monotony of provincial life, while his comedy The Cherry Orchard portrays characters futilely clinging to the past as their land is sold from underneath them.

In this edition Peter Carson's moving translations convey Chekhov's subtle blend of comedy, tragedy and psychological insight, while Richard Gilman's introduction examines how Chekhov broke with theatrical conventions and discusses each play in detail.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

These critically hailed translations of The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and the other Chekhov plays are the only ones in English by a Russian-language scholar who is also a veteran Chekhovian actor.

Without compromising the spirit of the text, Paul Schmidt accurately translates Chekhov's entire theatrical canon, rescuing the humor lost in most academic translations while respecting the historical context and original social climate.

Schmidt's translations of Chekhov have been successfully staged all over the U.S. by such theatrical directors as Lee Strasberg, Elizabeth Swados, Peter Sellars and Robert Wilson. Critics have hailed these translations as making Chekhov fully accessible to American audiences. They are also accurate -- Schmidt has been described as the gold standard in Russian-English translation by Michael Holquist of the Russian department at Yale University.

Tales of madness, alienation, and insight from a master of the short story

Ward No. 6 and Other Stories 1892-1895 collects stories which show Anton Chekhov beginning to confront complex, ambiguous and often extreme emotions in his short fiction. These stories from the middle period of Chekhov's career include - influenced by his own experiences as a doctor - 'Ward No. 6', a savage indictment of the medical profession set in a mental hospital; 'The Black Monk', portraying an academic who has strange hallucinations, explores ideas of genius and insanity; 'Murder', in which religious fervour leads to violence; while in 'The Student', Chekhov's favourite story, a young man recounts a tale from the gospels and undergoes a spiritual epiphany. In all the stories collected here, Chekhov's characters face madness, alienation and frustration before they experience brief, ephemeral moments of insight, often earned at great cost, where they confront the reality of their existence.

This is the second in three chronological volumes of Chekhov's short stories in Penguin Classics. Ronald Wilks's lucid translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing the increasingly experimental style of Chekhov's writing during this time. This edition also contains an annotated bibliography, chronology and explanatory notes.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Anton Chekhov, widely hailed as the supreme master of the short story, also wrote five works long enough to be called short novels-here brought together in one volume for the first time, in a masterly new translation by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

The Steppe--the most lyrical of the five--is an account of a nine-year-old boy's frightening journey by wagon train across the steppe of southern Russia. The Duel sets two decadent figures--a fanatical rationalist and a man of literary sensibility--on a collision course that ends in a series of surprising reversals. In The Story of an Unknown Man, a political radical spying on an important official by serving as valet to his son gradually discovers that his own terminal illness has changed his long-held priorities in startling ways. Three Years recounts a complex series of ironies in the personal life of a rich but passive Moscow merchant. In My Life, a man renounces wealth and social position for a life of manual labor.

The resulting conflict between the moral simplicity of his ideals and the complex realities of human nature culminates in a brief apocalyptic vision that is unique in Chekhov's work.

Winner of Best Play Revival at the WhatsOnStage Awards 2024
Nominated for Best Revival at the Olivier Awards 2024

Can you imagine if it was possible to completely change the way you live your life? To look at your life and ask yourself what you would do if it died. If your old life died. It ended. And then take what's left of your real life and live it properly. How can I do that, Michael? Where do I start?

Chekhov's classic tale of love, art, sex, and attempted murder in a fresh adaptation by Simon Stephens, written to be performed by a solo actor.

Comedic and tragic, Chekhov's examination of our shared humanity - our hopes, dreams, regrets - is thrust into sharp focus in Vanya. This fresh adaptation explores the kaleidoscope of human emotions, harnessing the power of the intimate bond between actor and audience to delve deeper into the human psyche.

This edition was published to coincide with the West End premiere starring Andrew Scott in September 2023.

From the celebrated, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov a lavish volume of stories by one of the most influential short fiction writers of all time.

Anton Chekhov left an indelible impact on every literary form in which he wrote, but none more so than short fiction. Now, renowned translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky give us their renderings of fifty-two Chekhov stories. These stories, which span the complete arc of his career, reveal the extraordinary variety and unexpectedness of his work, from the farcically comic to the darkly complex, showing that there is no one single type of Chekhov story. They are populated by a remarkable range of characters who come from all parts of Russia and all walks of life, including landowners, peasants, soldiers, farmers, teachers, students, hunters, shepherds, mistresses, wives, and children. Taken together, they demonstrate how Chekhov democratized the form.

Included in this volume are tales translated into English for the first time, including Reading and An Educated Blockhead. Early stories such as Joy, Anguish, and A Little Joke sit alongside such later works as The Siren, Big Volodya and Little Volodya, In the Cart, and About Love. In its range, in its narrative artistry, and in its perceptive probing of the human condition, this collection promises profound delight.

From one of Russia's greatest writers, Anton Chekhov, an indispensable collection of stories, full of humor, truth, and vast insight, selected and introduced by modern American virtuoso Richard Ford, available in a deluxe paperback edition--part of the Ecco Art of the Story series.

One of the most beloved Russian writers, Anton Chekov had an indelible influence on many revered modern writers, including Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Robert Stone, Nadine Gordimer, William Maxwell, and Ernest Hemingway. In this superb anthology, Ford, a master of short fiction in his own right, has chosen twenty of his personal favorites from among more than two hundred of Chekhov's tales and short novels.

Though they were composed more than a century ago, Chekhov's stories hold timeless lessons and insights invaluable in our own age. The Essential Tales of Chekhov Deluxe Edition includes familiar masterpieces The Kiss, The Darling, and The Lady with the Dog, as well as several brilliant lesser-known tales--A Blunder, Hush , and Champagne. These stories, ordered chronologically from 1886 to 1899, are drawn from Chekhov's most fruitful years as a short story writer. The translation is done by the renowned Constance Garnett, who also brought Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Turgenev to the English-speaking world.

Anton Chekhov's Selected Stories contains a wide spectrum of classics and new favorites, including Ward No. 6, The Lady with the Little Dog, Anna on the Neck, The Name-Day Party, The Kiss, An Incident at Law, and Elements Most Often Found in Novels, Short Stories, Etc. This edition features twenty-five brand-new translations, commissioned expressly for this volume from Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Peter Constantine, Rosamund Bartlett, Michael Henry Heim, among others. Twenty translations have been selected from the published work of such master translators as Patrick Miles and Harvey Pitcher, Ann Dunnigan, and Ronald Hingley. Seven additional translations are by Constance Garnett, substantially revised by Cathy Popkin. All stories are annotated to clarify unfamiliar material and to point out differences in the translators' strategies.

Life and Letters includes a rich selection of Chekhov's letters, some in English for the first time, some with previously redacted passages restored, as well as Aileen Kelly's portrait of Chekhov.

Criticism explores the wide range of approaches and interpretations in two sections. Approaches juxtaposes five different perspectives on how to read Chekhov, represented by Peter Bitsilli, Alexander Chudakov, Robert Louis Jackson, Vladimir Kataev, and Radislav Lapushin. Interpretations contains ten divergent readings of stories in this edition. Case studies include Michael Finke on At Sea; Cathy Popkin on [A Nervous] Breakdown; Julie de Sherbinin on Peasant Women; Liza Knapp on Ward No. 6; Robert Louis Jackson on Rothschild's Fiddle and The Student; Wolf Schmid on The Student; John Freedman on Man in a Case, Gooseberries, and About Love; Caryl Emerson on A Calamity, Anna on the Neck, About Love, and The Lady with the Little Dog; and Rufus Mathewson on The Lady with the Little Dog and The Beauties.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included, as is a postscript on the translators and their work. A special section, Comparison Translations, gives passages from selected stories in multiple translations.

The Cherry Orchard was first produced by the Moscow Art Theatre on Chekhov's last birthday, January 17, 1904. Since that time it has become one of the most critically admired and performed plays in the Western world, a high comedy whose principal theme, the passing of the old semifeudal order, is symbolized in the sale of the cherry orchard owned by Madame Ranevsky.
The play also functions as a magnificent showcase for Chekhov's acute observations of his characters' foibles and for quizzical ruminations on the approaching dissolution of the world of the Russian aristocracy and life as it was lived on their great country estates. While the subject and the characters of the work are, in a sense, timeless, the dramatic technique of the play was a Chekhovian innovation. In this and other plays he developed the concept of indirect action, in which the dramatic action takes place off stage and the significance of the play revolves around the reactions of the characters to those unseen events.
Reprinted from a standard edition, this inexpensive well-made volume invites any lover of theater or great literature to enter the world of Madame Ranevsky, Anya, Gayef, Lopakhin, Firs, and the other memorable characters whose hopes, fears, loves, and general humanity are so brilliantly depicted in this landmark of world drama.

Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness, he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape. One of the greatest Russian short story writers and an exemplary playwright, Anton Chekhov penned down some of the finest short stories and plays in literature. His works continue to be translated into various languages across the world. This hardbound deluxe edition brings together his early short stories along with the outstanding short fiction written in his later years. It includes ' The Death of a Government Clerk, ' ' The Huntsman, ' ' Oh! The Public, ' ' Anyuta, ' ' Misery, ' ' The Lottery Ticket, ' ' A Dreary Story, ' ' Peasant Wives, ' ' The Lady with the Dog, ' and his last completed story, ' Betrothed.' This classic collectable is a must-read for all! - A timeless collection of Anton Chekhov's renowned stories - This hardbound deluxe edition brings together his early short stories - The varied themes and thought-provoking ideas will take the reader on an adventurous journey - This covetable deluxe edition comes with gilded edges, a ribbon bookmark, and beautiful endpapers - It is perfect for gifting and will make a good addition to any library

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 Paris with her lover-where she fled following the death of her young son-Madame Ranevskaya is brought back to her Russian estate by her daughter Anya. In her absence, Varya, Ranevskaya's adopted daughter, has cared for the estate to the best of her ability, but the family's debts have forced them to put the house and its renowned cherry orchard up for auction. Leonid Gayev, Madame Ranevskaya's brother, hopes to keep the estate, while Yermolai Lopakhin-a wealthy neighbor despite being born a peasant-encourages the family to sell. Although they initially shelter Madame Ranevskaya, she soon discovers the truth and decides-against the family's wishes-to throw a party none of them can afford. As the play reaches its tragic conclusion, the wealthy are forced to acknowledge their circumstances have changed, and the characters who depend on them for employment must do what they can to survive. The Cherry Orchard is a powerful drama that takes an unsparing appraisal of the massive shift in political and social circumstances undergone by Russians in the early twentieth century.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard is a classic of Russian literature reimagined for modern readers.

Superior to any other Uncle Vanya I've read or seen... Baker practices astonishing verbal magic over and over again. - Clancy Martin, Paris Review

Strikingly intimate... Free of the stilted or formal locutions that clutter up some of the more antique-sounding translations... Ms. Baker has given the play a natural but distinctly contemporary American sound. - Charles Isherwood, New York Times

Devastatingly beautiful... People are going to be talking about this one for years. - Jacob Gallagher-Ross, Village Voice

More than a modern-dress treatment of a classic work, it's a fresh rethinking of the material from the perspective of a modern mind. - Marilyn Stasio, Variety

Annie Baker, one of the most celebrated playwrights in the United States, lends her truthful observation and elegant command of the colloquial to Anton Chekhov's despairing masterpiece Uncle Vanya. A critical hit in its sold-out Off-Broadway premiere, Baker's telling is a refreshingly intimate and modern treatment of a Chekhovian classic.

Annie Baker's plays include The Flick (The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Obie Award), The Aliens (Obie Award), Circle Mirror Transformation (Obie Award) and Body Awareness. Her work has been produced at more than a hundred theaters in the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries internationally. Recent honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Steinberg Playwright Award and New York Drama Critics Circle Award. She is a resident playwright at the Signature Theatre.

In the heat of summer, Sonya and her Uncle Vanya while away their days on a crumbling estate deep in the countryside, visited occasionally by the only local doctor Astrov.

However, when Sonya's father, Professor Serebryakov, suddenly returns with his restless, alluring, new wife, declaring his intention to sell the house, the polite fa ades crumble and long-repressed feelings start to emerge with devastating consequences.

Olivier Award-winner Conor McPherson's stunning adaptation of Anton Chekhov's masterpiece, Uncle Vanya, is a portrayal of life at the turn of the twentieth century, full of tumultuous frustration, dark humour and hidden passions.

The orchard's white, all white. You haven't forgotten, have you, Lyuba? The avenue lined with trees, unfurling like a slender ribbon. And on moonlit nights, it shimmers. You remember, don't you? You haven't forgotten?

Can anyone persuade Ranevskaya and her aristocratic household that the world is changing, and they must too?

Following internationally acclaimed productions of The Seagull (Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney) and Three Sisters (Young Vic, London), director Benedict Andrews has a reputation as one of the world's leading interpreters of Chekhov.

For the Donmar Warehouse he stages the great writer's final play. It's a work that predicted and captured the end of an era, but is timeless in its humanity, prescience, humour and pathos. The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov's masterpiece.

This edition was published to coincide with its world premiere at London's Donmar Warehouse in April 2024.