The golden age of Russian theater produced works of enduring vitality, dramatic interest, and literary merit -- among them, masterpieces by the four great writers included in this collection. Gogol's The Inspector General, a mistaken-identity farce that skewers venality, pretentiousness, and other foibles, is for many the greatest gem of Russian drama. A later gem, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, brilliantly depicts the approaching dissolution of the world of the Russian aristocracy. Gorky's The Lower Depths presents a grimly realistic view of the wretched lives of down-and-outers on the eve of the Russian Revolution. Turgenev's A Month in the Country -- a precursor of Chekhov's plays, fifty years ahead of its time -- explores the painful absurdity of romantic love on a country estate filled with the light of a nineteenth-century summer.