The Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil

With the publication of "The Overcoat" in 1842, Nicolai Gogol (1809–1852) inaugurated a new chapter in Russian literature, in which the underdog and social misfit is treated not as a figure of fun or an object of charity, but as a human being with as much right to happiness as anybody else.The compassion, simplicity, and gentle humor with which he treats the poignant quest of a hapless civil servant for the return of his stolen overcoat―and the fantastic yet realistic manner in which he takes revenge on his nemesis, the Very Important Person―mark "The Overcoat" as one of the greatest achievements of Gogol's genius.The five other "Tales of Good and Evil" in this superb collection demonstrate the broad range of Gogol's literary palette in his short fiction: the fantastic, supernaturally tinged "The Terrible Vengeance," the comic portraiture of "Ivan Fydorovich Shponka and His Aunt," the tragic moral realism of "The Portrait" and "Nevsky Avenue," and the rampaging satire and absurdism of his send-up of Russian upper-class stupidity, "The Nose." The stories offer the reader the perfect introduction to the imaginative genius of Gogol, which was to flower so triumphantly in his masterpiece, Deal Souls.

About the Author

Nikolai Gogol was born on March 20, 1809, in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, on the periphery of the Russian Empire. He attended the Nizhyn School of Higher Art, now Nizhyn Gogol State University, where he first began writing. On leaving school in 1828, Gogol moved to St. Petersburg to pursue his literary ambitions. His first collection of short stories, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, was published in 1831 to general acclaim. While his early stories were written in the tradition of Ukrainian folklore, his later stories, known as the Petersburg tales, established his reputation as a great surrealist and satirist of life under the Russian Empire. In his later years, Gogol lived abroad throughout Europe, particularly Italy, where he developed a great appreciation for Rome, and wrote the first part of his unfinished masterpiece, Dead Souls. He died in Moscow, Russia, on February 21, 1852.

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