Book description
Author, dramatist and satirist, Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852) deeply
influenced later Russian literature with his powerful depictions of a
society dominated by petty beaurocracy 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
by Nabokov as the greatest Russian play every written. The stories
gathered here, meanwhile, range from comic to tragic and describe the
isolated lives of low-ranking clerks, lunatics and swindlers. They
include Diary of a Madman, an amusing but disturbing exploration of
insanity; Nevsky Prospect, a depiction of an artist besotted with a
prostitute; and The Overcoat, a moving consideration of poverty that
powerfully influenced Dostoevsky and later Russian literature.
Gogol, Nikolay Vasilyevich (1809-52), Russian writer, whose plays,
short stories, and novels rank among the great masterpieces of
19th-century Russian realist literature.
Ronald Wilks has translated many Russian works of literature
including, for Penguin, those of Gorky, Sologub, Tolstoy, and Pushkin,
and most recently, three volumes of Chekhov's stories and his short
novel, The Shooting Party.
Robert A Maguire is Professor and Head of Department at Columbia
University. He is the author of several books about Russian literature
and the prize-winning translator of Petersburg by Andrei Bely (Indiana
UP, 1979) and most recently, for Penguin, of Gogol's Dead Souls.
