Description

Book Synopsis

Nikolai Gogol''s ''epic poem in prose'', Dead Souls is a damning indictment of a corrupt society, translated from the Russian with an introduction and notes by Robert A. Maguire in Penguin Classics.

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of ''N'', visiting a succession of landowners and making 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 ''dead souls'' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, 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 (1842), Russia''s first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy.

In his introduction, Robert A. Maguire discusses Gogol''s li

Trade Review
Gogol was a strange creature, but then genius is always strange. (Vladimir Nabokov)"

Dead Souls

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    A Paperback / softback by Nikolay Gogol, Robert Maguire, Robert Maguire

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      Book details

      Publisher Penguin Random House Group
      Imprint Penguin Classics
      Published 29 July 2004
      ISBN-13 9780140448078
      978-0140448078
      ISBN-10 0140448071
      Also in:
      Fiction

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Nikolai Gogol''s ''epic poem in prose'', Dead Souls is a damning indictment of a corrupt society, translated from the Russian with an introduction and notes by Robert A. Maguire in Penguin Classics.

      Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of ''N'', visiting a succession of landowners and making 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 ''dead souls'' as collateral to re-invent himself as a aristocrat. In this ebullient picaresque masterpiece, 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 (1842), Russia''s first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy.

      In his introduction, Robert A. Maguire discusses Gogol''s li

      Trade Review
      Gogol was a strange creature, but then genius is always strange. (Vladimir Nabokov)"

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