Ivanoff (1887) was Chekhov’s first significant dramatic success. The title character is a young landowner sinking under debt, a dying wife he no longer loves, and an unnamed spiritual paralysis — a precursor to the suffering, stalled characters of his mature plays. Chekhov revised the play several times before its Moscow premiere and was fiercely defensive of his protagonist against misreadings.
A fascinating early step toward the dramatic technique of The Seagull and Uncle Vanya, Ivanoff is now available as a free EPUB download in this public-domain edition.