Russian Texts – serie

Chekhov's Dama s sobachkoy (1899) is perhaps the most celebrated example of his shorter prose and one of the most famous stories in Russian literature. The tale of an adulterous liaison, set in Yalta, it shows to greatest effect Chekhov's propensity for the conjuring of mood and atmosphere. The tale's modernity is displayed too in its anticlimactic conclusion of poignant open-endedness: ' ...and it was clear to both that the end was still far, far off and that the most complicated and difficult part was only beginning.'

Pikovaia dama (The Queen of Spades) has continued to fascinate readers since its first publication in 1834, and has been successfully adapted to both operatic stage and screen. The most generally admired of Pushkin’s stories, it has earned a high place amongst his works as a whole and in many ways is the embodiment of ‘essential’ Pushkin. With its play on both psychology and the fantastic, its tersely precise language and its openness to multiple readings, it continues to mesmerise critics, teachers and students alike.This book contains the complete text in Russian of The Queen of Spades, with an introduction to Pushkin's life and work. The text is also supplemented with extensive notes in English and a complete vocabulary.

This book contains the Russian text of Turgenev's Month in the Country, edited with an English language introduction and notes

Chayka (1896) is the first of Anton Chekhov's four celebrated plays. While its first performance was a fiasco, the play was revived in 1898 and staged by the newly founded Moscow Art Theatre, who 'adopted' Chekhov and built their own success on masterly performances of his plays, beginning with The Seagull. Produced by Nemirovich-Danchenko, with Konstantin Stanislavsky as Trigorin and Meyerhold as Treplev, it was a triumph for both the Theatre and the playwright. In this play Chekhov first demonstrated his innovatory technique of indirect action and new dramatic structure and his skill in creating atmosphere on the stage and portraying subtle shifts in human relationships. Treplev's modernist-symbolist play-within-the-play is only one of The Seagull's links with Shakespeare's Hamlet. Chekhov's 'comedy' is firmly established as one of the great classics of twentieth-century European drama.

This is a Russian text with English introduction and notes.