Dead Souls

Since its publication in 1842 <b>Dead Souls</b> has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality vulgarity and pomp. As Gogol's wily antihero Chichikov combs the back country wheeling and dealing for &quot;dead souls&quot;--deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants landowners and conniving petty officials few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition. This lively idiomatic English version by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky makes accessible the full extent of the novel's lyricism sulphurous humor and delight in human oddity and error.