As a short story writer, his reputation was definitively acquired in 1888, when The Steppe won the Pushkin Prize. After a visit to a penal colony in 1890, he wrote The Island of Sakhalin. Then he lived near Moscow, where he ran a free clinic for peasants. His first play, Ivanov (1887) had little success, but the SeaGull and his next plays were acclaimed at the Moscow Art Theater. In 1901, Anton Pavlovich married Olga Knipper, an actress and interpreter of many of his characters. Three years later, he died of tuberculosis. His style, emphasizing internal dramas, mood and characterization, is focusing on the tragicomic aspects of daily events.