Dead Souls

Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As Gogol''s wily antihero, Chichikov, combs the back country wheeling and dealing for "dead souls"-deceased serfs who still rep...