Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich.

POKHOZHDENIYA CHICHIKOVA, ILI MERTVYYA DUSHI: POEMA [THE ADVENTURES OF CHICHIKOV, OR DEAD SOULS. A POEM].

Moscow: University Press, 1842. First edition. Gogol's masterpiece, a classic of nineteenth-century Russian literature, and one of his works satirising the Russian character, as he also did with Revizor [The Government Inspector].

Volume one only (as issued), 8vo (233 x 150mm.), half-title, later calf-backed brown buckram, lettered in gilt on spine, without wrappers, occasional light staining, pp.251-254 bound upside down, but generally an excellent copy.

There was a second volume, published after Gogol's death by his heirs in 1855; although he had burned the second volume, there were sufficient drafts remaining for the volume to be recomposed, and the planned third volume had never been written.

Gogol's "Dead Souls" sits high within the pantheon of Russian literature. It was written as a social satire, a modern "Inferno" in prose. The novel is complex, yet highly amusing as it follows the gregarious and immoral Tchitchikoff on his quest throughout the Russian countryside in attempts to purchase title to thousands of dead serfs. (Item #1830)