Gogol is to Russian literature what Laurence Sterne is to English, a peculiar and brilliant original who created a world of his own.

These five stories, including Diary of a Madman, The Overcoat and The Nose, make the best introduction to Gogol. His world is less a world than an atmosphere, a question of sleight of hand and trapdoor humour, involving characters that are vivid in the way only ghosts and government clerks can be. ‘When, as in his immortal The Overcoat, he really let himself go and pottered happily on the brink of his private abyss, he became the greatest artist that Russia has yet produced,’ wrote Nabokov, adding that ‘after reading Gogol one’s eyes may become gogolized and one is apt to see bits of his world in the most unexpected places.’

Contents:

• Introduction by Ronald Wilks
• Diary of a Madman
• The Nose
• The Overcoat
• How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich
• Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt