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Dead Souls

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Dead Souls
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Nikolai Gogol
Translated by Isabel Florence Hapgood
Introduction by Anthony Briggs
Series edited by Dr. Keith Carabine
SeriesWordsworth Classics
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:496
Dimensions(mm): Height 198,Width 129
ISBN/Barcode 9781840226379
ClassificationsDewey:FIC
Audience
General

Publishing Details

Publisher Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Imprint Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Publication Date 5 June 2010
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

With an Introduction by Anthony Briggs. Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood. Russia in the 1840s. There is a stranger in town, and he is behaving oddly. The unctuous Pavel Chichikov goes around the local estates buying up 'dead souls'. These are the papers relating to serfs who have died since the last census, but who remain on the record and still attract a tax demand. Chichikov is willing to relieve their owners of the tax burden by buying the titles for a song. What he does not say is that he then proposes to take out a huge mortgage against these fictitious citizens and buy himself a nice estate in Eastern Russia. Will he get away with it? Who will rumble him? Does this narrative contain a deeper message about Russia itself or the spiritual health of humanity? There is much interest and some suspense in considering these issues, but the real pleasure of this story lies elsewhere. It is an enjoyable comic romp through a retarded part of a backward country, a picaresque series of grotesque portraits, situations and conversations described with Gogolian humour based mainly on hyperbole. This is, quite simply, the funniest book in the Russian language before the twentieth century.