Dead Souls

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov arrives in a provincial Russian town with a scheme that baffles everyone who hears it. He wants to buy up ‘dead souls,’ the serfs who have died but still count on the tax census and so still cost their owners money. As he calls on one landowner after another, Gogol assembles a gallery of misers, dreamers, and fools that adds up to a portrait of a whole society quietly rotting. The comedy is broad and the satire merciless, yet the prose carries a strange lyrical warmth. Left unfinished at Gogol’s death, it stands as one of the founding works of Russian fiction. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.