Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol – författare

"This new two-volume edition should do something for increasing Gogol's fame as the most original, imaginative, and exuberant of all Russian writers, as the greatest comedian and humorist among a rather solemn lot."--Rene Wellek, Yale University

"The Constance Garnett translation has been revised throughout by the editor."

These translations of Gogol's plays restore the vitality of Gogol's language and humour, finally allowing his dramatic art to speak directly to Western readers, directors, actors and theatre-goers. This volume contains ""The Government Inspector"" and ""Marriage"" - Gogol's greatest full-length plays - and a one-act satire, ""The Gamblers"". Also included are writings on theatre from Gogol's notebooks and correspondences, as well as an appendix and extensive introduction.

Collected here are Gogol's finest tales - from the demon-haunted 'St John's Eve' to the strange surrealism of 'The Nose', from the heart-rending trials of the copyist in 'The Overcoat' to those of the delusional clerk in 'The Diary of a Madman' - allowing readers to experience anew the unmistakable genius of a writer who paved the way for Dostoevsky and Kafka. To this superb new translation - the first in twenty-five years and destined to become the definitive edition of Gogol's short fiction - Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky bring the same clarity and fidelity to the original that they brought to their brilliant translation of Dostoevsky's works and to War and Peace.

Originally published in 1835, this is one of two works by Gogol dealing with the "little man" (the other is "The Overcoat"). Of over 150 examples of this genre, these two stories are often considered the most complex, both linguistically and psychologically. Poprischin is not at the bottom of the social ladder; he is a middle-aged, grade nine civil servant, with at least ten minions under him. Nevertheless he is painfully aware of the social gap between himself and his Director and, even more so, between himself and Sophie, the Director's daughter. Poprischin's frustrated love for Sophie drives him into madness, the stages of which are catalogued in diary form. These stages include imagined conversations between dogs and hallucinations set in a Spanish madhouse. This edition is based on the latest critical edition of the text to be published in Russia and follows the 1835 version of the text.