Project Gutenberg's Plays by Chekhov, Second Series, by Anton Chekhov

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Title: Plays by Chekhov, Second Series
On the High Road, The Proposal, The Wedding, The Bear, A
Tragedian In Spite of Himself, The Anniversary, The Three
Sisters, The Cherry Orchard

Author: Anton Chekhov

Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7986]
Posting Date: August 8, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLAYS BY CHEKHOV, SECOND SERIES ***

Produced by James Rusk and Nicole Apostola

PLAYS BY ANTON CHEKHOV, SECOND SERIES

By Anton Chekhov

Translated, with an Introduction, by Julius West

[The First Series Plays have been previously published
by Project Gutenberg in etext numbers: 1753 through 1756]

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
ON THE HIGH ROAD
THE PROPOSAL
THE WEDDING
THE BEAR
A TRAGEDIAN IN SPITE OF HIMSELF
THE ANNIVERSARY
THE THREE SISTERS
THE CHERRY ORCHARD

INTRODUCTION

The last few years have seen a large and generally unsystematic mass of
translations from the Russian flung at the heads and hearts of English
readers. The ready acceptance of Chekhov has been one of the few
successful features of this irresponsible output. He has been welcomed
by British critics with something like affection. Bernard Shaw has
several times remarked: "Every time I see a play by Chekhov, I want to
chuck all my own stuff into the fire." Others, having no such valuable
property to sacrifice on the altar of Chekhov, have not hesitated
to place him side by side with Ibsen, and the other established
institutions of the new theatre. For these reasons it is pleasant to
be able to chronicle the fact that, by way of contrast with the casual
treatment normally handed out to Russian authors, the publishers are
issuing the complete dramatic works of this author. In 1912 they brought
out a volume containing four Chekhov plays, translated by Marian Fell.
All the dramatic works not included in her volume are to be found in the
present one. With the exception of Chekhov's masterpiece, "The Cherry
Orchard" (translated by the late Mr. George Calderon in 1912), none