Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol

Dead Souls is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The novel chronicles the travels and adventures of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov and the people whom he encounters. These people typify the Russian middle aristocracy of the time. Gogol himself saw his work as an "epic poem in prose", and within the book characterised it as a "novel in verse". Gogol intended the novel to be the first part of a three-volume work, but burned the manuscript of the second part shortly before his death. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence (like Sterne's Sentimental Journey), it is regarded by some as complete in the extant form. (wikipedia.org)

Dead Souls

The Government Inspector

Alexander Berkman

Nikolai Vasilievitch Gogol, the Moliere of Russia, was born in the sunny Ukraine in March, 1809, and died in Moscow forty-three years later. The author of Russia's famous national comedy, The Inspector-General, Gogol was the first dramatist of his country to write plays on the Western European model, even as his friend Pushkin was the first Russian poet to introduce the Western strain into the literature of his people. In the comedy Marriage, which Gogol began in 1832 as The Wooers and completed only in 1842 in its final form, the author attacked in his inimitable manner the modern problem of escape from marriage. By unexcelled, mirth-provoking characterization, and with delightful irony, Gogol satirized the fear of marriage inherent in the soul of the average man. The Gamblers is a masterpiece of dramatic suspense, and has been hailed in Europe as a model for plot development. With a few strokes, Gogol drew this set of characters whose purpose in life is so similar, yet whose manners are so individual. When The Gamblers was first produced in Berlin, it made a striking impression on the audience whose mystification was complete to the very end.

The Gamblers and Marriage

Dover Thrift Editions

George Rapall Noyes

John Laurence Seymour

Nikola_ Vasil_evich Gogol_

A small-town policeman scrambles to concealbribery and other misdeeds from a visiting official inGogol's masterpiece of dramatic satire. Biting, highly entertaining treatment of universal human foibles and failings."

The Inspector General

Nikolai Gogol was one of the greatest writers of the golden age of Russian Literature. As friend of the Great Aleksandr Sergeeyivich Pushkin, the Shakespeare of Russian Literature, he helped Pushkin realize his genius and at the same time wrote some of the most famous and entertaining short stories of all the Gogol always had sympathy for the little guy, who was stuck in a dead end job, and the guy who had no voice. Gogol's stories are surreal, imaginative and impressive. Gogol shows you the roots of what Russian writers continued to excel at later with works like Metamorphosis (Kafka). He calls his stories tales (there are the Ukrainian Tales and the Petersburg Tales), and they most definitely are tales. They are the kind of stories you can tell around the campfire -- they are that unnerving and exhilarating. Yet they are social commentaries as well. These stories work on many levels because they are detailed, feature fantastic characters, and delve into fantasy. All the while you find unexpected twists and occurrences. It's sheer genius. This collection, which includes "Taras Bulba," is a fabulous introduction to both Russian literature and the work of Nikolai Gogol. "St. John's Eve," "The Cloak," "The Mysterious Portrait," "How the Two Ivans Quarreled," and "The Calash" are also included in this collection.

The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

Alexander Vassiliev

A comic masterpiece about Chechikov, a trafficker in souls (adult male serfs), who can still be of profit even when dead.

A story of a clerk whose new overcoat changes his destiny.

The Overcoat

The pearl of Gogol?s Little Russian novels, is a historical novel, Taras Bulba, which recalls to life one of the most interesting periods in the history of Little Russia--the fifteen century. Constantinople had fallen into the hands of the Turks; and although a mighty Polish-Lithuanian state had grown in the West, the Turks, nevertheless, menaced both Eastern and Middle Europe. Then it was the Little Russians rose for the defense of Russia and Europe.The hero of the novel is an old Cossack, Taras Bulba, who has himself spent many years in the Secha, but is now peacefully settled inland on his farm. His two sons have been educated in the Academy of Kiev and return home after several years of absence. On the very next day after their arrival, without letting the mother enjoy the sight of her sons, Taras takes them to the Secha, which--as often happened in those times--was going to begin war, in consequence of the exactions which the Polish landlords made upon the Little Russians. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852) wrote his epic Taras Bulba over a period, broken by intervals, of more than nine years: from 1833 to 1842. The profound ideological message of the tale, its thrilling and truthful characters, Gogol?s colorful portrayal of the people?s life, have immortalized Gogol?s epic. "Taras Bulba is an excerpt, an episode from the epic life of the whole people of the Ukraine in the 16th century . . . Do we not see here Cossackdom in its entirely, with its strange civilization, its gallant and riotous life, its insouciance and indolence, its indefatigability and activeness? Tell me what is missing in this picture, what is needed to make it complete! Is it not all snatched up from the very bottom of life? Does not that life throb and pulsate here? And what a brush --- broad and sweeping, quick and vivid! What bright, what dazzling colors! And what poetry --- vigorous, powerful as the Zaporzhian Setch itself, where ?was the lair of men proud and strong as Lions! Hence poured freedom and Cossackdom over all the Ukraine!' "V.G. Belinsky

Taras Bulba

A middle-class social climber named Chichikov embarks upon a journey to collect 'dead souls.' These 'dead souls' are in fact serfs who have died since the last census was taken-though dead, they have not yet been removed from official records, and are therefore subject to taxation. In an entertaining story about Chichikov's bizarre plan to take out a loan against all the 'dead souls' he acquires, Gogol presents his shady protagonist against a grimly humorous backdrop of supporting characters.

Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol

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