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Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As... Read Full Overview

One of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy

"Backgrounds" contains not only Gogol's correspondence relevant to the novel but also the four formal letters that set forth his views on the work.

The editor has also included a useful chronology of Gogol's life and an invaluable table of ranks in czarist Russia.

A... Read Full Overview

Gogol's 1842 novel Dead Souls, a comic masterpiece about a mysterious con man and his grotesque victims, is one of the major works of Russian literature. It was translated into English in 1942 by Bernard Guilbert Guerney; the translation was hailed by Vladimir Nabokov... Read Full Overview

"Backgrounds" contains not only Gogol's correspondence relevant to the novel but also the four formal letters that set forth his views on the work. The editor has also included a useful chronology of Gogol's life and an invaluable table of ranks in czarist Russia. A wide range... Read Full Overview

Gogol's tale of a dismissed civil servant turned unscrupulous confidence man is the most essentially Russian of all the great novels in Russian literature. With its rich and ebullient language, ironic twists, and cast of comedic characters, Dead Souls (1842) stands as one of... Read Full Overview

First published in 1842, "Dead Souls" is the story of Chichikov, a young middle-class gentleman who comes to a small town in Russia with a dubious plan to improve his wealth and position in life. He begins by spending beyond his means on the premise that he can impress the... Read Full Overview

Dead Souls charts the nefarious dealings of Chichikov, a member of the middle aristocracy in a time when serfs were considered the property of landowners, who could buy, sell, or mortgage them. Chichikov concocts a scheme to purchase ownership of deceased male serfs in order... Read Full Overview

A stranger arrives in a Russian backwater community with a bizarre proposition for the local landowners: cash for their "dead souls," the serfs who have died in their service and for whom they must continue to pay taxes until the next census. The landowner receives a payment... Read Full Overview

Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As... Read Full Overview

Although largely composed by Gogol during self-imposed exile in Italy in the late 1830s, this work remains perhaps the most essentially Russian of novels. The reader follows Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned confidence man, through the countryside in pursuit of his... Read Full Overview

Данное издание знаменитого произведения Николая... Read Full Overview