The Carriage In Diary Of A Madman The Government Inspector Selected Stories Translated With Notes By Ronald Wilks With An Introduction By Robert A Maguire Penguin Classics

Author, dramatist and satirist, Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852) deeply influenced later Russian literature with his powerful depictions of a society dominated by petty beaurocracy and base corruption. This volume includes both his most admired short fiction and his most famous drama. A biting and frequently hilarious political satire, The Government Inspector has been popular since its first performance and was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest Russian play every written. The stories gathered here, meanwhile, range from comic to tragic and describe the isolated lives of low-ranking clerks, lunatics and swindlers. They include Diary of a Madman, an amusing but disturbing exploration of insanity; Nevsky Prospect, a depiction of an artist besotted with a prostitute; and The Overcoat, a moving consideration of poverty that powerfully influenced Dostoevsky and later Russian literature.

Diary of a Madman is a farcical short story Nikolai Gogol. Along with The Overcoat and The Nose, Diary of a Madman is considered...

Diary of a Madman is a farcical short story Nikolai Gogol. Along with The Overcoat and The Nose, Diary of a Madman is considered...

Aksentei is a government clerk who keeps a diary in which he begins to write on an unidentified October 3 of a year. In this diary, the character at first only tells routine things about his life at work. The most disturbing thing is that he always writes like when he gets home, he sleeps for an enormous amount of time. Suddenly signs of madness begin to appear when Aksentei claims to have heard two dogs talking in the street. He decides to chase the owners of one of the dogs with the idea of talking to her and getting the letters that he has been writing with the other pet because they may have information about the daughter of his boss with whom he is secretly in love.

Short Stories. This first-ever selection of Alice Munro's stories sums up her genius. Her territory is the secrets that cackle beneath the facade of everyday lives, the pain and promises, loves and fears of apparently ordinary men and women whom she renders extraordinary and unforgettable.