The NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes. The translations, by leading experts in the field, are accurate and above all actable. The editions of English-language plays include a glossary of unusual words and phrases to aid understanding.

The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov's classic tragicomedy, translated and introduced by Stephen Mulrine.

Ranevskaya can no longer afford to keep her childhood home with its beautiful but barren cherry orchard. She rejects the compromise offered by Lopakhin, a local businessman, to cut down the orchard and sell the land for holiday homes. Eventually Ranevskaya and her family are forced to leave the estate which Lopakhin has now bought.

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), a physician by training, is now considered the most notable 20th-century Russian dramatist. His major plays, all staged by Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre, helped establish psychological realism in European theatre.