Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

"The Steppe is an account of a nine-year-old boy's frightening journey by wagon train across the steppe of southern Russia. The Duel sets two decadent figures--a fanatical rationalist and a man of literary sensibility--on a collision course that ends in a series of surprising reversals. In The Story of an Unknown Man, a political radical spying on an important official by serving as valet to his son gradually discovers his own terminal illness has...

"In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the reader through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for twenty years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program. Paired with stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, these essays are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. Saunders approaches...

The cherry orchard: Madame Ranevskaya returns to her decaying estate in pre-Revolutionary Russia after an exile in Paris. The estate and its beloved cherry orchard are threatened by Ranevskaya's financial problems, and no one seems able to do anything about it. Talking to a stranger: A grown-up brother and sister go home to visit their elderly parents, but a series of emotional developments lead to shocking resolutions. Consists of four episodes,...