Dead Souls

Nikolai Gogol' s novel Dead Souls is one of the best-known pieces of 19th-century Russian literature. Chichikov is a mysterious man, who arrives at a small town with a strange plan of acquiring \" dead souls. \" Marked by eccentric characters and heated town gossip, this story is a social satire that keeps the reader guessing. The writer himself described Dead Souls as an \" epic poem in prose\" and a \" novel in verse. \" Although intended by Gogol as the first part of a trilogy, the story never saw a follow-up before or after his death. The satirical story has been turned into theater, opera, radio, television and film productions alike, including the Soviet television miniseries Dead Souls (1984).