The Seagull E-Book

Anton Chekhov

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding. This Drama Classics edition of Anton Chekhov's early tragedy of the disruptive presence of a glamorous actress and her lover is translated and introduced by Stephen Mulrine.

Leseprobe

DRAMA CLASSICS

THESEAGULL

byAnton Chekhov

translated and with an introduction byStephen Mulrine

NICK HERN BOOKSLondon

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Introduction

For Further Reading

Chekhov: Key Dates

Dramatis Personae

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Introduction

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in Taganrog, a seaport in South Russia, in 1860. By his own account, his childhood was far from idyllic. His father Pavel was a domestic tyrant, fanatically religious, and Chekhov and his brothers were forced to rise before dawn to sing in the local church choir, then work long hours after school, in the family grocer’s shop.

Taganrog was in decline, but its Greek shipping community was relatively wealthy, and Chekhov was first sent to a Greek-language school, which his father naively regarded as the highway to a lucrative career. After a wasted year, Chekhov was enrolled in the local high school, where he stayed, an unremarkable scholar, until 1879.

His last years at the Taganrog school were spent apart from his family, however, since his bankrupt father had fled to Moscow, where Chekhov’s elder brothers were already students. Chekhov completed his studies, entered Moscow University’s Faculty of Medicine, and at the age of nineteen became the family’s principal breadwinner, writing short comic pieces to supplement his student allowance.