This site devoted to the life and work of Chekhov includes e-texts of many Chekhov works as well as the e-text of Reminiscence of Chekhov by Maxim Gorky, Alexander Kuprin, and I.A. Bunin. Biographical material, quotes on Chekhov by Nabokov, and excerpts of Chekhov on creativity and writing are also featured. The site also offers a mirror of the currently obsolete definitive Anton Chekhov Home Page which provides yet a further link to the Chekhov Papers, a dramaturgical e-periodical featured on Gretchen Haley's page about the Seagull.

Nebraska Centre for Writers: Anton Chekhov Page
http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/NCW/chekhov.htm

This site is rich in high-quality Chekhov information. It includes a virtual tour of Taganrog, Chekhov's birthplace.

19th and Early 20th Century Russian Literature
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1702/index.html

This page devoted to Chekhov includes interesting links to an All-Things-Russian Web Site as well as a site featuring Russian children's stories.

Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard
http://webserver.rcds.rye.ny.us/id/Theater/Czechov.html

This site shows a picture of a performance of Chekhov's last play, a link to Russian theater from 1894 to 1905, and more.

Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard at SFSU
http://www.sfsu.edu/~allarts/faculty/cherryorchardint.html

This interview with director Bill Peters of San Francisco State University's Theatre Arts Department has some helpful advice for anyone interested in putting on a production of the play.

BIOGRAPHY
Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), the Russian short story writer and playwright, wrote his first stories while he was a medical student at Moscow University, to help his family pay off debts. His grandfather had been a serf who had bought his freedom. His father was an unsuccessful grocer in Taganrog, in the southwestern part of the country. After completing medical school, Chekhov became an assistant to the district doctor in a provincial town. His early stories were mostly humorous sketches that he first published in newspapers under various pseudonyms, keeping his own name for his medical articles. But the popularity of these sketches made him decide to become a writer.

Chekhov's first two collections of short stories, published in 1886 and 1887, were acclaimed by readers, and from that time on he was able to devote all his time to writing. His more than 800 stories have immensely influenced writers of short fiction. Unconcerned with giving a social or ethical message in his work, he championed what he called "the holy of holies" - "love and absolute freedom - freedom from violence and lies, whatever their form."