Contains: Ward No. 6, The Black Monk, The Grasshopper, The Two Volodyas, A Woman's Kingdom, The Student, Three Years, Murder, Ariadna Chekhov believed that a writer should not provide solutions but should describe a situation so truthfully that the reader can no longer evade it. These stories depict extreme forms of mental experience — depression, religious fanaticism, megalomania — and more everyday feelings of boredom, frustration, and alienation. In each story, the characters experience moments of insight or spiritual epiphany in which they come face to face with the truth of their existence.

From his teenage years in provincial Russia to his premature death in 1904, Anton Chekhov wrote thousands of letters to a wide range of correspondents. This fascinating new selection tells Chekhov's story as a man and a writer through affectionate bulletins to his family, insightful discussions of literature with publishers and theatre directors, and tender love letters to his actress wife. Vividly evoking landscapes, people and his daily life, the letters offer revealing glimpses into Chekhov's preoccupations — the onset of tuberculosis, his dual careers as doctor and writer, and his ambivalence about his growing reputation as Russia's foremost playwright and author. This volume takes us inside the mind of one of the world's great writers, and the character that emerges from these pages is resilient, generous, charming and life enhancing.

Masterpieces by great writers from the golden age of Russian theater: The Inspector General by Gogol; Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard; Gorky's The Lower Depths; and A Month in the Country by Turgenev. Essential reading for courses in modern theater, these widely acclaimed works will be appreciated, as well, by theatergoers and drama lovers.

This second volume of Chekhov's stories draws from his work of the 1880s and 90s and comprises A Daughter of Albion, An Incident, A Dreary Story, The Duel, The Chorus Girl, Ward 6, The Teacher of Literature, An Artist's Story, My Life, The Darling and The Lady with the Dog.