Formerly part of the "World Dramatists" series of play collections by classic and modern playwrights, including foreign works in workable and accurate translations, this title and seven others are reissued in a new format under the heading, "World Classics".

This volume includes The Seagull, a about the battle for power between a mother and her son which ends in tragedy; Uncle Vanya tells of two obsessive love affairs that lead nowhere, and a flirtation that brings disaster; Three Sisters in which three siblings wrestle with their futures and The Cherry Orchard where the old must inevitably give way to the new. Haunting and elusive, these four great late masterpieces have found in Michael Frayn a translator who perfectly captures their delicate balance of the tragic and the absurd. The volume also contains four of Chekhov's early short 'vaudevilles' as well as a substantial introduction by Michael Frayn."The critical clamour for a Complete Chekhov in Michael Frayn's translation has borne fruit" (Sunday Times)