On this day in literature
January 17
In literary history
- 1904Anton Chekhov's final play, The Cherry Orchard, opened at the Moscow Art Theatre. Chekhov had written it as a comedy; Stanislavski staged it as a tragedy; Chekhov declared him ruinous. Chekhov was dead within six months.
Writers born on January 17
- Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600),
- Benjamin Franklin (1706),
- Charles Brockden Brown (1771),
- Anne Brontë (1820)