Gogol ranges from the dark Gothic of A Terrible Revenge to the folkloric levity of Christmas Eve, and from the pitilessly ironic Story of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich to the brooding nationalism of Taras Bulba. An entire panoply of human--and not so human--types populates these pages: swashbuckling Cossacks, market hucksters, lissom water-nymphs, beguiling witches, feckless devils, philandering village headmen, and amorous clerics.

Here, too, are to be found some of Russian literature's most celebrated poetic passages, and these have inspired the creations of artists in other media--Mussorgsky's opera Sorochintsy Fair, Janaček's orchestral rhapsody Taras Bulba, the illustrations of Chagall, or Yershov's eerie and haunting film, Viy, to name a few.

Hailed universally as Russian's finest comic writer, and by many as its greatest creator of prose, Gogol is either loved or hated by his Russian readers. This translation captures fully the vigour of his early stories.

Contents:

• Introduction by Christopher English
• Note on the Texts and Transliterations
• Select Bibliography
• A Chronology of Gogol
• Map of Gogol's Ukraine
• Village Evenings Near Dikanka
  • Part One
    • Preface
    • Sorochintsy Fair
    • St. John’s Eve
    • A Night in May, or The Drowned Maiden
    • The Lost Dispatch
  • Part Two
    • Preface
    • Christmas Eve
    • A Terrible Revenge
    • Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt
    • The Bewitched Place
• Mirgorod
  • Part One
    • Old-World Landowners
    • Taras Bulba
  • Part Two
    • Viy
    • The Story of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich
• Explanatory Notes