Lot 34A email save

CHEKHOV, Anton (1860-1904). Sbornik tovarischestva

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St. Petersburg: [Isidor Goldberg], 1904. 4+320 pp., volume II only, small 8vo (198 x 137 mm). Contemporary brown half morocco over cloth-covered boards, spine lettered and numbered in gilt. Condition: overall toning, occasional light spotting; extremities rubbed, joints rubbed and slightly split. first serial publication of The Cherry Orchard: see pp. 29-105. "There is nothing in English literature in the least like The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov has shed over us a luminous vapor in which life appears as it is, transparent to the depths. We feel our way among submerged but recognizable emotions. I felt like a piano resonating after a masterful concerto" (Virginia Woolf, 1920). [With:] Anton CHEKHOV. Vischnevyi sad. Komediya v chetyrekh deistviyakh [The Cherry Orchard. A Comedy in Four Acts]. St. Petersburg: A. F. Marks, [1904]. 62+2 pp., 8vo (211 x 143 mm). 2pp. publisher's advertisements at back. Original gray paper wrappers, upper cover printed in black with the title within an art-nouveau border, the lower cover and inner surfaces of both covers printed with publisher's advertisements. Condition: neat repair to inner blank margin of title, some light spotting or soiling, tears to inner blank margins of pp. 39-42; neat repairs to backstrip and margins of wrappers. first separate publication of chekhov's last great play. The classic play on cultural futility opened on Chekhov's birthday January 17, 1904 at the Moscow Art Theatre under Konstantin Stanislavskii's direction. The playwright's wife Olga Knipper played Madame Ranevskaya. Performed as a tragedy rather than a comedy as written, Chekhov thought Stanislavskii ruined it. "Often you will find the words 'through tears,'" he explained, "but I am describing only the expression on their faces, not tears. And in the second act there is no graveyard." Maxim Gorky thought it was trivial and Ivan Bunin thought it was unrealistic. The Tsarist authorities censored some of Trofimov's speeches. Nevertheless the ill playwright was called to the stage on opening night and the production was a great success and the play remains one of the world's most frequently performed plays. The official date of publication of The Cherry Orchard was June 1, 1904; Chekhov died on July 2. (2)

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