Dear Writer, Dear Actress : The Love Letters of Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper [Hardcover]

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Author), Ol'ga Leonardovna Knipper (Author), Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova (Author), Jean Benedetti (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1997

He was Russia's greatest playwright. She was the leading actress in the Moscow Art Theater. But they were more than artistic collaborators. From 1899 until his death in 1904, Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper were friends, lovers and, finally, husband and wife. But her work and his health caused them long separations. Revealed through their letters, this was one of the most extraordinary love stories in the history of theater.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

These letters between Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) and Olga Knipper (1868-1959) tell of their courtship and marriage. The brief time the two had together?the five years preceding his death?was interrupted by Chekhov's stays in Yalta because of his tuberculosis and Knipper's work in Moscow as an actress. Knipper's letters contain fine descriptions of the Moscow theater world and the struggles of an actress and a theater company. The letters beautifully convey Knipper's spiritual longings and explore the changes in the couple's relationship and the problems, illusions, and complexities of their life together. This well-wrought portrait of a vanished world has received an excellent translation. Recommended for Russian literature and theater collections.?Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A moving and intimate epistolary record of the complex relationship between the great Russian playwright and the actress who eventually became his wife. Chekhov (18601904) already had an advanced case of tuberculosis when he met Knipper (18681959) in the fall of 1898. She was rehearsing the role of Arkadina in his revised version of The Seagull for the newly formed Moscow Art Theatre; the production's success--and her personal triumph in it--meant that she spent the theater season in Moscow while he, under doctor's orders, spent the long Russian winter in the warmer climate of Yalta. These separations, which continued after their marriage in 1901, made letters their primary form of communication for months at a time. The couple's very different personalities stand in sharp relief: Knipper's lively epistles, which feature evocative descriptions of the Russian landscape and some astute analysis of her lover's personality, reveal an affectionate, frank, impulsive woman who wrote what she thought and frequently expressed frustration with Chekhov's elusiveness. The playwright's missives are witty, charming, and infuriatingly oblique about his feelings, although his post-wedding correspondence is noticeably warmer. Benedetti (Stanislavski, 1988) has edited the letters to focus on the pair's personal relationship; frequent ellipses suggest that a good deal of information about Moscow Art Theatre rehearsals and internal politics has been omitted, possibly to avoid overlap with The Moscow Art Theatre Letters, which he also edited. Interesting though the couple's emotional ups and downs are, more material on their shared professional life--he wrote Masha in Three Sisters and Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard for her--would have made this even better. Nonetheless, this correspondence gives us wonderfully vivid self-portraits of two important Russian artists and a poignant chronicle of love struggling against the handicap of distance and the ravages of terminal illness. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 291 pages
• Publisher: Ecco Pr (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880015500
• ISBN-13: 978-0880015509
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,096,406 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Theatre

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