Drama Family Dynamics Unfulfilled Dreams Social Change Isolation
The Three Sisters is a play by Anton Chekhov, first published in 1901.
Set in a provincial garrison town, it follows a family whose brightest hopes are fixed on returning to Moscow, even as everyday obligations and chance setbacks keep them rooted in place.
Across birthdays, promotions, flirtations, and a devastating fire, the sisters and those around them wrestle with the gap between aspiration and reality. Time keeps slipping forward; careers stall, love misfires, and the household fills with visitors whose plans rarely lead where they intend.
Chekhov turns small conversations, pauses, and missed cues into a study of ordinary lives under quiet pressure. Work, purpose, and the meaning of happiness are tested against routine, inertia, and social change, revealing how dreams fade not with a crash but with a sigh.
With its layered subtext and ensemble scenes, the play blends melancholy and dry humor to show the endurance that follows disappointment. The result is a compassionate portrait of longingβand of the stubborn hope that life might still become what it promised.
"OLGA. It's just a year since father died last May the fifth, on your name-day, Irina. It was very cold then, and snowing. I thought I would never survive it, and you were in a dead faint. And now a year has gone by and we are already thinking about it without pain, and you are wearing a white dress and your face is happy".
#21 in Plays (this month)
The The Three Sisters book is available for download in PDF, ePUB and Mobi:
Copyright info
The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov is believed to be in the public domain in the United States only. It may still be copyrighted in other countries. If you are not in the United States, please check your local laws to ensure this eBook is in the public domain in your country before downloading The Three Sisters in PDF or ePub.
Longing for elsewhere becomes a lifestyle. Chekhov composes a chamber piece of wit, tenderness, and stalled motion that feels painfully recognizable.
Burnout, drift, and unrealized plans are not new. The play invites practical hope: small acts, honest talk, and work that means something.
Emotion tuned to conversation.
Someday is not a plan.
Company shapes courage.
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Short forms of human truth; restraint detail and sudden light.
We have 6 books by Anton Chekhov in the AliceAndBooks library