The Best Russian Plays and Short Stories by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Gogol and many more

Classic Plays and Stories of Satire, Conscience, and RevoltBy Anton Chekhov, A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoyevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, M.Y. Saltykov, V.G. Korolenko, V.N. Garshin, F.K. Sologub, I.N. Potapenko, S.T. Semyonov, Maxim Gorky, L.N. Andreyev, M.P. Artzybashev, A.I. Kuprin, William Lyon Phelps
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Length50h 17m

About this audiobook

The Best Russian Plays and Short Stories gathers a capacious cross-section of Russian prose and drama, tracing the movement from Romantic and realist observation to satire, psychological intensity, symbolism, and early modernist unease. Its varied forms—compact anecdote, social sketch, tragicomic play, moral fable, and interior narrative—illuminate recurring concerns with class, bureaucracy, faith, violence, rural life, and the fractured self. Particularly memorable are the collection's encounters with grotesque officialdom, familial conflict, and the ordinary pressures that become moral crises. The volume brings together canonical figures including Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gorky with Saltykov, Korolenko, Garshin, Sologub, Potapenko, Semyonov, Andreyev, Artzybashev, and Kuprin. Introduced for English-language readers under the auspices of William Lyon Phelps, these voices map major currents in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian literature: realism's social conscience, the psychological novel's legacy, satirical critique, Decadent experimentation, and revolutionary-era cultural ferment. Recommended for students and general readers alike, this anthology offers an unusually rich single-volume introduction to Russian literary culture. Reading across its plays and stories reveals productive dialogues between compassion and irony, social analysis and metaphysical questioning, tradition and formal innovation. It is valuable both as an educational survey and as an invitation to encounter distinct artistic temperaments in revealing proximity.

Audiobook details

Rating★★★★ 4.2 (1.6K)
Includes Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing, StoryGraph
GenreLiterary Classics
Length50 hrs 17 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJun 1, 2015
LanguageEnglish

Table of contents

1Vladimir Putin: Authoritarianism and Anti-Americanism (Annotated)
26THE FOURTH SCENE
2The Best Russian Plays and Short Stories by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Gogol and many more
27THE FIFTH SCENE
3Plays:
28Short Stories:
4THE INSPECTOR GENERAL: A COMEDY IN FIVE ACTS
29INTRODUCTION
5INTRODUCTION
30THE QUEEN OF SPADES
Show all chapters
6CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
31THE CLOAK
7CHARACTERS AND COSTUMES
32THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
8ACT I
33THE CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE WEDDING
9ACT II
34GOD SEES THE TRUTH, BUT WAITS
10ACT III
35HOW A MUZHIK FED TWO OFFICIALS
11ACT IV
36THE SHADES, A PHANTASY
12ACT V
37THE SIGNAL
13LAST SCENE
38THE DARLING
14SILENT SCENE
39THE BET
15SAVVA
40VANKA
16PERSONS
41HIDE AND SEEK
17THE FIRST ACT
42DETHRONED
18THE SECOND ACT
43THE SERVANT
19THE THIRD ACT
44ONE AUTUMN NIGHT
20THE FOURTH ACT
45HER LOVER
21THE LIFE OF MAN
46LAZARUS
22PERSONS
47THE REVOLUTIONIST
23THE FIRST SCENE
48THE OUTRAGE
24THE SECOND SCENE
49AN HONEST THIEF
25THE THIRD SCENE
50A NOVEL IN NINE LETTERS
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