Books by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

This is a dual-language book with the Russian text on the left side, and the English text on the right side of each spread. The texts are precisely synchronized. A great book for learning both languages while reading a Russian classic masterpiece. Fragments of Dead Souls' second volume, which Gogol burnt shortly before his death, are not included in this edition.

Taras Bulba is a magnificent story portraying the life of the Ukrainian Cossacks who lived by the Dnieper River in the sixteenth century. Taras Bulba is an old and hardened warrior who feels a little rusty from lack of action. When his two sons return from school at Kiev, he eagerly takes them to the "setch," the camping and training island of the Cossacks. There they spend their time drinking and remembering old glories. It happens, however, that the Cossacks are going through an uneasy truce with their Turkish hegemones and the Tartar horsemen. Taras Bulba, always the warmonger, harangues the Cossacks, engineers a change in leadership, and leads them to attack the Catholic Poles. The Cossacks ride West, destroying everything they meet with extraordinary brutality. Finally, they lay siege to a walled city, but Andrew, Taras's younger son, discovers that the woman he loves is inside. A masterful and brutal story of the horrors of war. Newly designed and typeset in a modern 6-by-9-inch format by Waking Lion Press.

Originally published in 1835, this is one of two works by Gogol dealing with the "little man". Poprischin is a middle-aged, grade nine civil servant who is painfully aware of the social gap between himself and Sophie, the Director's daughter. It is this frustrated love that drives him to madness.

Nevsky Prospect, published in 1835, is Gogol's major contribution to the 'Petersburg' theme in Russian literature, a theme taken up and developed by Dostoevsky, Blok, Zamiatin and many others. By day, Nevsky Prospect, the capital's main thoroughfare, is thronged with people from all sections of Petersburg society. After dusk it is the haunt of prostitutes and the Devil holds sway. Gogol's story, which he eventually includes in the 'Petersburg' cycle of tales, is ostensibly two stories in one, linked by the slimmest of threads: the tragic tale of the flippant philanderer Pirogov. In the final paragraphs, another theme emerges: the struggle between Good and Evil or - in Gogol's terms - between Beauty and the Devil.Nevsky Prospect epitomizes much of what has come to be termed Gogolian, the inimitable prose style, the love hate relationship with Petersburg, and above all the preoccupation with poshlost (vulgar pretentiousness) in all its manifold forms.