The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol

Ago 2011 · Ibinebenta ng Vintage

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Using, or rather mimicking, traditional forms of storytelling Gogol created stories that are complete within themselves and only tangentially connected to a meaning or moral. His work belongs to the school of invention, where each twist and turn of the narrative is a surprise unfettered by obligation to an overarching theme.

Selected from Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, Mirgorod, and the Petersburg tales and arranged in order of composition, the thirteen stories in The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogolencompass the breadth of Gogol's literary achievement. From the demon-haunted “St. John's Eve ” to the heartrending humiliations and trials of a titular councilor in “The Overcoat,” Gogol's knack for turning literary conventions on their heads combined with his overt joy in the art of story telling shine through in each of the tales.

This translation, by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, is as vigorous and darkly funny as the original Russian. It allows readers to experience anew the unmistakable genius of a writer who paved the way for Dostevsky and Kafka.

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Nikolai Gogol was born in the Ukraine in 1809 and died in 1852. Originally trained as a painter, he became interested in the theater and was soon known for his plays and short stories, notably "The Diary of a Madman"  (1834), "The Nose"  (1836), and "The Overcoat"  (1842). Dead Souls, his novel, was published in 1842.

Richard Pevear, a native of Boston, and Larissa Volokhonsky, a native of Leningrad, are married and live in France. Their translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov won the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize.

Also translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky, (and also available from Vintage Books) are Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol; and Crime and Punishment, Demons, and Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky.