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Dead Souls
Dead Souls
Nov 16, 2025 6:13 AM

Author:Nikolai Gogol,Richard Pevear,Larissa Volokhonsky,Richard Pevear

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 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 humour, and delight in human oddity and error.

Reviews

A strong and memorable novel

—— Guardian

It strikes deep inside the heart...The story is clean, clear, straight, the work of a mature imagination at full power...here is a book that will be celebrated for a long time

—— Mail on Sunday

This is a trule astonishing novel... I finished Life & Times of Michael K in a state of elation, for all the misery and suffering it contains. I cannot recommend it highly enough

—— Evening Standard

Beautifully written in a strong, plain, unpretentious style...distinguished by grim humour and powerful understatement

—— Sunday Express

The quality of Coetzee's writing lies in his inner vision: dark, passionately compassionate, concerned with the nature of man

—— Financial Times

'Masterful...the sheer weight of events carries you on...a cheerful whodunnit'

—— The Times

'An auspicious fiction début...engaging and enjoyable'

—— Observer

'A delicious tale of crime'

—— Home & Country

Full of Chippendale-style hidden compartments...her narrative is absolutely enchanting'

—— Literary Review

'An emotionally-wrought novel, in turn lyrical and violent, fable-like and gutsy, in which many of its characters are on a quest to find out who they really are'

—— SUNDAY HERALD

'A claustrophobically tense novel, Wide Eyed combines Nicoll's profound love of the Scottish landscape and its people with a journalist's eye for topicality...a writer who intends to become as prominent a part of the literary landscape as the cliffs and mountains from which he draws his inspiration'

—— GLASGOW HERALD
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