The Seagull, the first of his masterpieces, premiered in St. Petersburg in 1896. The opening night was such a disaster that by Act Two Chekhov was hiding backstage from the jeering, and by 2 a.m., after hours of walking the streets alone, he was declaring, "Not if I live to be seven hundred will I write another play." It was not hard to see how the first audiences for this play might have been confused by the atomised almost chaotic appearance of the tale of lovers and strangers set in this small Russian summer retreat. The simple ordinary people are not what audiences expected in the last decade of the nineteenth century and even today some of us would prefer stories of superheroes saving the day. ( )

Russian A Level in 1970/71 drew me to Chekhov, to his plays, to his short stories and to this book - and to a performance of The Seagull, in Russian, in London with just a few weeks' knowledge of the language. Not a word was understood. ( )

Includes: Ivanov, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, and Three Sisters. Translated by Elisaveta Fen. Penguin Classics. Chekov (1960-1904) despite his occasional flashes of humour, paints an essentially tragic picture of Russian society. These plays all display Chekov's overwhelming sense of the tedium and futility of everyday life. Yet his representation of human relationships is infinitely sympathetic, and each play contains at least one character who expresses Chekov's hope for a brighter future. (from the Penguin Classics jacket notes.)