Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol

With an Introduction by Anthony Briggs. Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood. Russia in the 1840s. There is a stranger in town, and he is behaving oddly. The unctuous Pavel Chichikov goes around the local estates buying up 'dead souls'. These are the papers relating to serfs who have died since the last census, but who remain on the record and still attract a tax demand. Chichikov is willing to relieve their owners of the tax burden by buying the titles for a song. What he does not say is that he then proposes to take out a huge mortgage against these fictitious citizens and buy himself a nice estate in Eastern Russia. Will he get away with it? Who will rumble him? Does this narrative contain a deeper message about Russia itself or the spiritual health of humanity? There is much interest and some suspense in considering these issues, but the real pleasure of this story lies elsewhere. It is an enjoyable comic romp through a retarded part of a backward country, a picaresque series of grotesque portraits, situations and conversations described with Gogolian humour based mainly on hyperbole. This is, quite simply, the funniest book in the Russian language before the twentieth century.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781840226379
ISBN 10	1840226374
Title	Dead Souls
Author	Nikolai Gogol
Series	Wordsworth Classics
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Year published	2010-06-05
Number of pages	496
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable