Dead Souls (Modern Library)
Edition: New Ed edition
Publisher: Modern Library
Published: May 13, 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 674
ISBN-13: 9780679602651
Subjects: 19th century fiction; Modern fiction; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Russian Novel And Short Story; Fiction; Russian; Literature: Classics; Classics; Fiction / General
First sentence: A rather handsome, light traveling carriage on springs rolled into the gates of an inn in a certain provincial capital, the kind of carriage that is favored by bachelors: retired lieutenant colonels, second captains, landowners possessing a hundred souls or so of serfs-in a word, all those who are called the fair-to-middlin' sort.
Description: "I want to show all Russia in this novel," wrote Nikolai Gogol to Alexander Pushkin as he began writing Dead Souls in 1835. Published seven years later, Gogol's sardonic, bizarre tale revolves around Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, a mystifying swindler who travels through provincial Russia trafficking in "souls" - those serfs who, even if dead, could still be bought and sold for profit.

Though Gogol never realized his full ambition for Dead Souls - it helped propel him into insanity and he burned the second part of the book - the work endures as one of the most dazzling pieces of fiction ever written.