These critically hailed translations of "The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The
Three Sisters" and the other Chekhov plays are the only ones in English
by a Russian-language scholar who is also a veteran Chekhovian actor.
Without compromising the spirit of the text, Paul Schmidt accurately
translates Chekhov's entire theatrical canon, rescuing the humor "lost"
in most academic translations while respecting the historical context
and original social climate.
Schmidt's translations of Chekhov have been successfully staged all over
the U.S. by such theatrical directors as Lee Strasberg, Elizabeth
Swados, Peter Sellars and Robert Wilson. Critics have hailed these
translations as making Chekhov fully accessible to American audiences.
They are also accurate -- Schmidt has been described as "the gold
standard in Russian-English translation" by Michael Holquist of the
Russian department at Yale University.