A masterpiece of modern drama, The Seagull dramatises the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina, her son the...

A hospital assistant, called Yergunov, an empty-headed fellow, known throughout the district as a great braggart and drunkard, was returning one evening in Christmas week from the...

In the Grasshopper we find a love triangle. Olga, her rather boring husband preoccupied with his work, and a young artist. Olga craves the excitement of the artistic life and...

Varka, a 13-year-old babysitter, sits all night long by the cradle trying desperately not to fall asleep for she knows she'd be severely beaten by her masters for that. Once she...

The master of the factory school maintained at the expense of the firm of Kulikin, was getting ready for the annual dinner. Every year after the school examination the board of...

Grisha, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his...

Subtle humour is one of the key elements in Chekhov's imaginative stories. But as an artist, Chekhov is more complicated. He paints life with all its nuances and shades of grey....

A local investigating magistrate unsuccessfully tries to explain that it is wrong to take nuts off the railroad track to a peasant, Grigoryev, who simply cannot see why he's to be...

Travelling from Odessa and Sevastopol, the narrator on board the steamboat meets a man called Ivan Shamokhin, who tells him a story of his love for a woman named Ariadna...

One day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting in the outer room in her summer villa. It...