Dead Souls - Gogol, Nikolai

* A superb new translation of one of the greatest comic works ofRussian literature 'Rus! Russ!...Everything within you is open,desolate, and flat; your squat towns barely protrude above thelevel of your wide plains, marking them like little dots, likespecks; here is nothing to entice and fascinate the onlooker'sgaze. Yet whence this unfathomable, uncanny force that draws me toyou?' Although Dead Souls (1842) was largely composed by Gogolduring self-imposed exile in Italy in the late 1830s, his last workremains to this day the most essentially Russian of all the greatnovels in Russian literature. As we follow its hero Chichikov, adismissed civil servant turned unscrupulous confidence man, aboutthe Russian countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise, thereunfolds before us a gallery of characters worthy in comic range ofChaucer, Rabelais, Fielding and Sterne. With its rich and ebullientlanguage, ironic twists and startling juxtapositions, Dead Soulsstands as one of the most dazzling and poetic masterpieces of thenineteenth century. This brilliant new translation by ChristopherEnglish is complemented by a superb introductory essay by thepre-eminent Gogol scholar, Robert Maguire. Readership: Students ofRussian literature, university courses on the novel and the generalreader.