Dead Souls

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 masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque g...