Dead Souls

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What to expect

Regarded as the first great masterpiece of Russian literature, Dead Souls mixes realism and symbolism for a vivid and highly original portrait of Russian life.

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town with a bizarre but seductive proposition for local landowners. He proposes to buy the names of their serfs who have died but who are still registered on the census, thereby saving their owners from paying taxes on them. But what collateral will Chichikov receive for these "souls"? What dubious scheme lies behind his actions?

Full of larger-than-life Dickensian characters—rogues and scoundrels, landowners and serfs, conniving petty officials, and the wily antihero Chichikov—Dead Souls is a devastating comic satire on social hypocrisy.

Critics Review

  • “Considered one of the world’s finest satires, this picaresque work traces the adventures of the social-climbing Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant out to seek his fortune. It is admired not only for its enduring comic portraits but also for its sense of moral purpose.”

    Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature

  • “Considered one of the great novels in the Russian canon, this book is a symbolic snapshot of nineteenth-century Russian life and an intense literary experience…Narrator Tom Weiner has a deep, robust, nasally tinged voice that captures the tone of the book.”

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