Synopses & Reviews
Some call him a Russian Mark Twain. And with his special blend of comedy, social commentary, and fantasy, Nikolai Gogol paved the way for his countrymen Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. This sampling of Gogol’s works includes the increasingly fantastic entries of “The Diary of a Madman,” followed by the wonderfully surrealistic “The Nose,” in which the title character embarks on some unlikely activities when separated from its owner’s face. In “The Carriage,” a pompous landowner gets his comeuppance when he attempts to impress a general. Rounding out the collection are the woefully comic tale of a clerk’s acquisition of “The Overcoat” and the celebrated novella “Taras Bulba” about the Ukrainian mythic hero said to have led a bloody Cossack revolt against the Poles. Translated by Priscilla Meyer and Andrew R. McAndrewWith a New Introductionand an Afterword by Priscilla Meyer
Review
“The greatest artist that Russia has yet produced.”
—Vladimir Nabokov
“Behind his laughter you feel the unseen tears.” —Alexander Pushkin
Synopsis
This 19th-century author created "some of the most colorful and haunting fiction of his century" Kirkus Reviews. And with his special blend of comedy, social commentary, and fantasy, he paved the way for Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.
@StaticBureaucracy Finally got my new threads today. Took it to work, I look Superfly. I’m not a gnat on a wall any more, I’m Akaky ‘Big Pimpin’’ Akakyevitch.
Seriously, check out pics on my Flickr. This coat is so money, it doesn’t even know how money it is.
From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less
Synopsis
This 19th-century author created "some of the most colorful and haunting fiction of his century" Kirkus Reviews. And with his special blend of comedy, social commentary, and fantasy, he paved the way for Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.
@StaticBureaucracy Finally got my new threads today. Took it to work, I look Superfly. I’m not a gnat on a wall any more, I’m Akaky ‘Big Pimpin’’ Akakyevitch.
Seriously, check out pics on my Flickr. This coat is so money, it doesn’t even know how money it is.
From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less
About the Author
The son of a small landowner,
Nikolai Gogol (1809–52) was educated at the Niezhin gymnasium, where he started a magazine and acted in student theatricals. In 1828, he went to St. Petersburg, obtained a government clerkship, and devoted himself to writing. In 1831–32, he published two volumes of
Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, a collection of stories based on Ukrainian folklore that was enthusiastically received. He next planned to write a history of Russia in the Middle Ages. The work never materialized, but the planning of it served to win him a chair of history at the University of St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, he published “Taras Bulba” and a number of short stories, including “The Overcoat.” On April 19, 1836, his famous comedy
The Inspector General was produced. The play stirred up controversy and critics hailed its author as the head of the Naturalist school. Gogol spent the next twelve years abroad, living mainly in Rome. During his voluntary exile, he completed
Dead Souls, a panorama of Russian life. Published in 1842, the book was an immediate success. The next ten years Gogol spent writing and rewriting a sequel that was never to see publication.
Andrew R. MacAndrew is the translator of numerous books, including
Notes from Underground and
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gogol’s
The Inspector General, and
Selected Letters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Priscilla Meyer is Professor of Russian Language and Literature at Wesleyan University, She published the first monograph on Vladimir Nabokov’s
Pale Fire,
Find What the Sailor Has Hidden, and edited Andrei Bitov’s collected stories,
Life in Windy Weather. She is coeditor of collections on Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Nabokov. Her most recent book is
How the Russians Read the French: Lermontov, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy.Table of Contents
The Diary of a Madman The Diary of a Madman
Translated by Priscilla Meyer
The Nose
Translated by Priscilla Meyer
The Carriage
Translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew
The Overcoat
Translated by Priscilla Meyer
Taras Bulba
Translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew
Afterword