Description: "I want to show all Russia in this novel", wrote Nikolai Gogol to Alexander Pushkin as he began writing Dead Souls in 1835. Published seven years later, Gogol's sardonic, bizarre tale revolves around Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, a mystifying swindler who travels through provincial Russia trafficking in "souls" - those serfs who, even if dead, could still be bought and sold for profit. Though Gogol never realized his full ambition for Dead Souls - it helped propel him into insanity and he burned the second part of the book - the work endures as one of the most dazzling pieces of fiction ever written.

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