Here in one compact and modestly priced edition are the celebrated Russian playwright`s most popular works. In addition to five full-length plays—The Sea Gull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, and Ivanov—this anthology features five of Anton Chekhov`s one-act comedies: The Anniversary, An Unwilling Martyr, The Wedding, The Bear, and The Proposal. Chekhov`s taste for vaudeville shows and French farces influenced his comic one-acts, which are widely regarded as masterpieces of the genre. His greatest fame rests upon his full-length tragedies, which focus on mood and characterization rather than plot. Chekhov considered his famous tragedies a form of comic satire—with the bleakness of life in czarist Russia at the turn of the twentieth century as their central joke. "All I wanted was to say honestly to people: `Have a look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives are!`" explained the playwright. In addition to their enduring emotional and intellectual appeal to audiences, Chekhov`s modern realist dramas continue to influence theatrical literature and performance. Dover Original.