Dead Souls

Since its publication in 1842 Dead Souls 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 dead souls--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 humour and delight in human oddity and error.