4 by Gogol: "Nevsky Prospect," "Diary of a Madman," "The Nose," "The Overcoat"

We will tackle four of Nikolai Gogol's most famous Petersburg tales: “Nevsky Prospect,” “Diary of a Madman,” “The Nose” and “The Overcoat", which are widely available in different translations, including several in the public domain that can be easily found online.

Nikolai Gogol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Gogol) (1809-1852) was a Ukrainian-born dramatist, novelist and short story writer. While his initial works focused on Ukrainian culture and folklore, his later works satirized corruption and bureaucracy in the Russian empire. Gogol is best known for a series of short stories written after his arrival in St. Petersburg that are imbued with elements of the surreal ("The Nose," "The Overcoat," "Nevsky Prospect"); Dostoevsky famously said that all subsequent Russian writers "came out from Gogol's overcoat." Becoming deeply religious in his later life, Gogol adopted an ascetic lifestyle and died of self-imposed starvation at the age of 42.