Nikolay Gogol

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a strange offer. 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 souls as collateral to re-invent himself as a gentleman. In this ebullient...

Author, dramatist, and satirist, Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852) deeply influenced later Russian literature with his powerful depictions of a society dominated by petty bureaucracy and base corruption. This volume includes both his most admired short fiction and his most famous drama. A biting and frequently hilarious political satire, The Government Inspector has been popular since its first performance and was regarded...

Little Black Classics - the new series to celebrate Penguin's 80th anniversary. The Nose by Nikolay Gogol tells the peculiar and surreal tale of a man who loses his nose. Incredibly, it begins leading a life of its own, even assuming the identity of a higher-ranking official. 'Strangely enough, I mistook it for a gentleman at first. Fortunately, I had...