Since his death in 1904, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov's works have had an enormous resonance in different cultures and fields of artistic activity. The essays in this volume examine the various aspects of his reception in Europe. North America, and the Far East. There are analyses of prose, film, and ballet transformations of his work, discussions of many theatre productions, and essays on the problems involved in translating his work into other languages. A final topic is Chekhov's biography as a changing cultural artifact.

Contents: Laurence Senelick: Chekhov and the bubble reputation - Sharon Marie Carnicke: Stanislavsky's production of The Cherry Orchard in the US - Daniel Gerould: The Pitoëffs' Chekhov - Clara Hollosi: The importance of being earnest (or funny) in adapting Chekhov: The case of Platonov - Ronald D. Leblanc: Liberating Chekhov or destroying him? Joel Gersmann's farcical production of The Cherry Orchard - John Tulloch/Tom Burvill/Andrew Hood: The Cherry Orchard in production and criticism - Nick Worrall: Robert Sturua's interpretation of Chekhov's Three Sisters: An experiment in post-modern theatre - Richard C. Borden: The comic Chekhov on the Russian stage, 1993-94 - Peter G. Christensen: Edward Bond as a Chekhovian playwright - Vladimir Zviniatskovsky: Two Ladies With Two Dogs And Two Gentlemen (Joyce Carol Oates and Chekhov) - Serafima Roll: The theatre of feeble discourse: From Chekhov's tenuous meaning to Nina Sadur's failure of speech - J. Douglas Clayton: Touching solitudes: Chekhov in Canada 1926-1980 - Lian Shu Li: Chekhov studies in China - Evgeny Steiner: The reception of Chekhov in Japan - Christine Hamon: Les Traductions françaises des pièces de Tchékhov: Du «charme slave» à la mise à nu du texte - Vera Adamantova and Rodney Williamson: Chekhovian irony and satire and the translator's art: Visions and versions of personal worlds - Alexander Sadetsky: Polysemy/homonymy: Interpreting the centrifugally directed wholeness of the Chekhovian word - Emma Polotskaia: Chekhov in the language of ballet: The Seagull at the Bolshoi Theatre - Elena Siemens: A tempest in a tea cup: Mikhalkov's Dark Eyes and Chekhov's «The Lady with the Dog» - Alevtina Kuzicheva: «Breaking the rules»: Chekhov and his contemporaries - Julie W. de Sherbinin: Chekhov and Christianity: The critical evolution - Peta Tait: The proposal reconsidered: A biography of love.