Classic fiction

The Cherry Orchard

by Anton Chekhov

96 pages · First published 1903

The Ranevsky family returns to its Russian country estate to find that debt has made the beloved property—and its famous cherry orchard—likely to be sold. Lopakhin, a wealthy businessman whose family were once serfs on the estate, proposes cutting down the orchard and developing the land as summer cottages, but the family cannot bring itself to act. Around them, servants, relatives, students, and would-be lovers talk past one another while social change makes the old order increasingly untenable. Anton Chekhov’s final play balances comedy and melancholy in a portrait of memory, class transition, paralysis, and people who understand that their world is ending but still cannot decide what to do next.