Petersburg Tales (Peterburgskie Povesti)

'We all emerged from Gogol's 'Overcoat,' Russian writers rightly say...' the French critic E.-M. de Vogüé remarked in 1885. Few would disagree with this statement today. How did the story of the stolen overcoat secure such an honorable place in literature for Gogol's works? Each generation of readers, discovering Gogol's mysterious, strange, fantastic world—'eternally the same, eternally new'—answers this question differently. The Petersburg Stories, including 'The Overcoat,' 'Nevsky Prospect,' 'The Nose,' 'The Portrait,' and 'Notes of a Madman,' were first published under one cover in the third volume of his collected works in 1842. The author did not combine them into a special cycle like “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka” or “Mirgorod”, however, they entered the history of Russian literature as a single whole. This edition also includes an article by V. M. Markovich and detailed commentary.