Introduction

'We all came out of Gogol's Overcoat.' These words, attributed to Dostoevsky, sum up the place of this story in Russian literature. Akaky Akakievich, a pitiful copying clerk of the lowest rank in St Petersburg, has spent his life transcribing documents and enduring the mockery of his colleagues. Scrimping for a long time, he at last has a new overcoat made, the one feast day of his life; but on the very first night it is stolen by robbers. He goes to beg help from a 'person of consequence', is roared at, falls ill and dies; and afterwards his ghost roams the streets of St Petersburg stripping people of their overcoats. In The Nose, a collegiate assessor wakes one morning to find his nose gone, while the nose, dressed in the uniform of a higher rank, drives about the city in a carriage paying calls. This volume also includes Diary of a Madman, Nevsky Prospect, The Portrait and other Petersburg tales.