{"product_id":"dead-souls-9780679776444","title":"Dead Souls","description":"Since its publication in 1842, \u003cb\u003eDead Souls\u003c\/b\u003e 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 represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants, landowners, and conniving petty officials, few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition. This lively, idiomatic English version by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky makes accessible the full extent of the novel's lyricism, sulphurous humor, and delight in human oddity and error.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNikolai Vasilevich Gogol\u003c\/i\u003e was born in 1809; his family were small gentry of Ukrainian cossack extraction, and his father was the author of a number of plays based on Ukrainian popular tales. He attended school in N?zhin and gained a reputation for his theatrical abilities. He went to St Petersburg in 1829 and with the help of a friend gained a post in one of the government ministries. Gogol was introduced to Zhukovsky, the romantic poet, and to Pushkin, and with the publication of \u003ci\u003eEvenings on a Farm near Dikanka \u003c\/i\u003e(1831) he had an entr?e to all the leading literary salons. He even managed for a short period to be Professor of History at the University of St. Petersburg (1834-5). \u003ci\u003eDiary of a Madman\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Story of the Quarrel between Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich\u003c\/i\u003e appeared in 1934, \u003ci\u003eThe Nose\u003c\/i\u003e in 1836, and \u003ci\u003eThe Overcoat \u003c\/i\u003ein 1842. Gogol also wrote the play \u003ci\u003eThe Inspector\u003c\/i\u003e (1836), \u003ci\u003eDead Souls\u003c\/i\u003e (1842), and several moralizing essays defending the Tsarist regime, to the horror of his liberal and radical friends. He lived a great deal abroad, mostly in Rome, and in his last years became increasingly prey to religious mania and despair. He made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1848, but was bitterly disappointed in the lack of feeling that the journey kindled. He returned to Russia and fell under the influence of a spiritual director who told him to destroy his writings as they were sinful. He burned the second part of \u003ci\u003eDead Souls\u003c\/i\u003e, and died in 1852 after subjecting himself to a severe regime of fasting.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50589673685266,"sku":"9780679776444","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_ac7b53a8-23d8-4b0e-a3a5-5dc5064863fe.jpg?v=1748528235","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/dead-souls-9780679776444","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}