A. P. Chekhov's plays, innovative for their time, made his name immortal both in literature and in the history of theater. “Let everything on stage be as simple and at the same time as complicated as in life: people have lunch, just have lunch, and at this time their happiness is formed and their lives are broken,” said Chekhov, deducing the formula of the new drama. The drama of everyday life, hidden in the ordinary course of life, became the writer’s most important discovery. And as a result, the usual ideas about dramatic action, its beginning, culmination and denouement, about the purpose of words and silence, gesture and gaze, are broken. The book represents the most complete collection of the writer's plays.