Since its publication in 1842 Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality vulgarity and pomp. As Gogol s wily antihero Chichikov combs the back country wheeling and dealing for dead souls --deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants landowners and conniving petty officials few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov s proposition. This lively idiomatic English version by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky makes accessible the full extent of the novel s lyricism sulphurous humor and delight in human oddity and error.