The Cherry Orchard (1903) is Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov's final play. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1904, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski-who also played the role of Leonid Gayev, the bizarre and uninspired brother of Madame Ranevskaya. It has since become one of twentieth century theater's most important-and most frequently staged-dramatic works. After five years of living in...

First performed in 1882, "Ghosts" is the controversial and tragic play by the famed Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It is the story of Helen Alving, a wealthy widow who was unhappily married to her unfaithful husband. Helen has tried to shelter her son, Oswald, from the corrupting influence of his father's immoral behavior and has sent him away only to discover that he is suffering from syphilis inherited from his father. Oswald has also unfortunately...

Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, with marginal notes and explanations and full descriptions of each character.

Three Sisters (1900) is a drama in four acts by Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski-who also played the role of Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin, a philosophizing artillery officer in love with middle Prozorov sister Masha. Reviews were mixed at first, but as the play continued to run, Three Sisters became a popular success,...

A rough-and-tumble farce centered around a lively battle of the sexes, The Taming of the Shrew brims with action and bawdy humor. The unconventional romance between a lusty fortune-hunter and a bitter shrew unfolds to the accompaniment of witty, fast-paced dialogue and physical humor in this excellent introduction to Shakespearean comedy. The freebooter Petruchio arrives in Padua to hear of Katharina, a beautiful heiress whose waspish rants and caustic...

This bewitching play, Shakespeare's final work, articulates a wealth of the playwright's mature reflections on life and contains some of his most familiar and oft-quoted lines. The story concerns Miranda, a lovely young maiden, and Prospero, her philosophical old magician father, who dwell on an enchanted island, alone except for their servants — Ariel, an invisible sprite, and Caliban, a monstrous witch's son. Into their idyllic but isolated lives...

Arrowsmith tells the story of bright and scientifically minded Martin Arrowsmith of Elk Mills, Winnemac (the same fictional state in which several of Lewis's other novels are set), as he makes his way from a small town in the Midwest to the upper echelons of the scientific community at a prestigious foundation in New York City. Along the way he begins medical school. He becomes engaged to one woman, cheats on her with another woman, becomes engaged...

The Aeneid, by Vergil, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

All's Well That Ends Well (1607) is a comedy by William Shakespeare. All's Well That Ends Well was likely inspired by the tale of Giletta di Narbona from Boccaccio's Decameron. Unpopular during Shakespeare's lifetime, the play remains one of his least staged works to this day. Despite this, scholars praise All's Well That Ends Well for its moral ambiguity. "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together, our virtues would be proud...

Antony and Cleopatra (1607) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. Inspired by Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives-a series of biographies on influential figures of the ancient world-Shakespeare wrote Antony and Cleopatra sometime between 1599 and 1601. Often considered a sequel of sorts to his earlier play Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra has served as source material for countless film and television adaptations. "Let Rome in Tiber melt,...