Our Notes & References

Attractive example of the second edition, more like a second printing of the first, identical edition published earlier the same year.

The Cherry Orchard was Chekhov’s final theatre masterpiece. It was completed by the winter of 1903 and first performed in the Stanislavskii production of January 1904. The printed text first appeared, in a slightly corrupt version, in the second volume of a literary anthology “Znanie” [“Knowledge”], published in St Petersburg also in 1904 (we also have a copy of this anthology, please inquire).

Soon after the periodical printing, Marks issued the first book edition. Chekhov died just five weeks later on July 2.

Provenance

V.S Afanasiev (ink stamp to title and a few pages); Robert Eden Martin (b. 1940; American lawyer and noted collector of Russian, British and American literature works).