The five year friendship and marriage of the writer Anton Chekhov and the actress Olga Knipper, who created many of the central female roles in his plays, is one of the most extraordinary love stories in the history of the theatre. Because of Knipper's work at the Moscow Art Theatre and Chekhov's illness which bound him to Yalta, their relationship flourished through a constant stream of letters between them.

Temperamentally the actress and writer were at odds, and their correspondence reveals a relationship as tempestuous, teasing and spontaneous as the many relationships found in Chekhov's stories and plays. This selection is the passionate and enduring rrecord of their love affair.

'This fascinating and moving correspondence lasted only five years and ended with Chekhov's death, but it charts the story of an extraordinary marriage and offers a wonderful glimpse of the playwright at work' Observer