Novel · A way to begin
Dead Souls
Мёртвые души
Nikolai Gogol · 1842
Synopsis
Pavel Chichikov, a middle-aged gentleman of middling means, arrives in a provincial capital and wins over the officials and landowners with his charm. He says little about himself and his purpose: to buy up “dead souls”, those deceased serfs whom the census lists still count as alive. He goes from estate to estate, to the sentimental Manilov, the widow Korobochka, the braggart Nozdryov, the gruff Sobakevich and the miserly Plyushkin, each of whom receives this strange proposal in his own way.
Context
The idea came from Pushkin. Begun in 1835, the book was to be the first of three volumes; the author finished it in Rome in 1841. The Moscow censorship made difficulties, and the manuscript was sent to Petersburg, which authorised it on 9 March 1842, under a title lengthened to Aventures de Tchitchikov, ou Les Âmes mortes, and deprived of the tale of Captain Kopeikin; it appeared in May. The author was attached to the word poem, carried on the cover he designed. Of the second volume, which he burned shortly before his death, only draft chapters remain.
Who it is for
Chapters of portraits and journeys, funny and biting; each visit to a landowner reads almost like a story in its own right.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as a model of nineteenth-century Russian literature, and selected among the works of the Norwegian Book Club's Bokklubben World Library.