Dead Souls » (Unabridged)

Nikolai Gogol (1809—1852) was born in Ukraine and left for St. Petersburg at the age of nineteen. From 1836 to 1848 he lived mainly in Rome, where he wrote Dead Souls. Robert A. Maguire is professor emeritus of Russian studies at Columbia University. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and several other awards for his studies and published works.

A satirical gem, Gogol's Dead Souls exemplifies his particular gift of exhibiting the true failings of humanity in all their absurdity.

Regarded as the first great masterpiece of Russian literature, Dead Souls mixes realism and symbolism for a vivid and highly original portrait of Russian life.

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town with a bizarre but seductive proposition for local landowners. He proposes to buy the names of their serfs who have died but who are still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them. But what collateral will Chichikov receive for these "souls"?

Full of larger-than-life Dickensian characters rogues and scoundrels, landowners and serfs, conniving petty officials, and the wily antihero Chichikov Dead Souls is a devastating comic satire on social hypocrisy.