Uncle Vanya

Uncle Vanya is one of Anton Chekhov’s four major plays, published in 1898 and set on a remote Russian country estate worn down by years of hard work and disappointment. For a long time Vanya and his niece Sonya have laboured to support the retired professor Serebryakov, only to realise that the great man they served is a selfish fraud and that the years they gave him are gone for nothing. The arrival of the professor’s beautiful young wife and a weary, idealistic country doctor stirs longings that can lead nowhere. Out of these small, thwarted lives Chekhov draws a play of enormous tenderness and endurance. This free PDF and EPUB presents Constance Garnett’s translation.