SOURCE: "Chekhov's Plays," in Anton Chekhov, Twayne Publishers, 1981, pp. 126-56.

Kirk provides a detailed examination of each of Chekhov's full-length plays.

Chekhov wrote his first plays at the age of eighteen, but all that survived of those efforts are the titles: a drama Without Fathers, a comedy Laugh It Off If You Can, and a one-act comedy "Diamond Cuts Diamond." (These titles are mentioned by Chekhov's eldest brother, Aleksandr, in a letter of October 14, 1878.) The manuscript of the earliest preserved play by Chekhov was discovered after his death and published in 1923. Because of the missing title page it was published as A Play without a Title,¹ but later it was named Platonov after the play's main character. Although the manuscript is undated there is evidence that the play was written in 1881, since Chekhov's brother Mikhail refers to it in his introduction to the second volume of Chekhov's letters...