Bibliograph

Dead souls, Nikolai Gogol ; translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky ; with an introduction by Richard Pevear

Type

Label

Dead souls, Nikolai Gogol ; translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky ; with an introduction by Richard Pevear

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (p. xxiii)

Index

no index present

Literary Form

fiction

Main title

Dead souls

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Nikolai Gogol ; translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky ; with an introduction by Richard Pevear

Summary

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town and visits a succession of landowners to make each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these "souls" as collateral to reinvent himself as a gentleman. In this ebullient masterpiece, Nikolai Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov, and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov. Dead Souls, Russia's first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy

Classification