The Cherry Orchard the three or four outstanding plays by Chekhov, along with "The Seagull", "Three Sisters", and "Uncle Vanya". The play concerns an aristocratic Russian landowner who returns to her family estate (which includes a large and well-known cherry orchard) just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. Unresponsive to offers to save the estate, she allows its sale to the son of a former serf; the family leaves to the sound of the cherry orchard being cut down. The story presents themes of cultural futility – both the futile attempts of the aristocracy to maintain its status and of the
How the Devil Married Three Sisters How the Devil Married Three Sisters How the Devil Married Three Sisters is an Italian fairy tale found in Thomas Frederick Crane's "Italian Popular Tales" (1885). It was collected and originally published in German as ""Der Teufel heirathet drei Schwestern"" by Widter and Wolf in 1866. It is classified as Aarne-Thompson tale type 311, "The heroine rescues herself and her sisters". Italo Calvino's retelling, entitled "Silver Nose" in his "Italian Folktales" (1956) is a composite, with its skeletal plot based on a Piedmont version featuring the devil-husband with a silver nose, fleshed out using variants from other localities. The following