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.
For over a decade, Gogol laboured on his comic epic Dead Souls- before renouncing literature and burning parts of the manuscript shortly before he died..
His experience of St Petersburg life informed a savagely satirical play, The Government Inspector, and a series of brilliant short stories including Nevsky Prospekt and Diary of a Madman.
Nikolai Gogol (1809-52) was born in the Ukraine.
This edition also includes a chronology, further reading, appendices, a glossary, map and notes.
Maguire discusses Gogol\'s life and literary career, his depiction of Russian society, and the language and narrative techniques employed in Dead Souls.
In his introduction, Robert A.
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 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.
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.
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of \'N\', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer.
Maguire.
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
