The Diary of a Madman, and Other Russian Sketches

Product Description<br/><br/><br/>Centering on the picaresque realism of Nikolai Gogol’s (1809–1852) mid-nineteenth-century visions of the extraordinary in everyday life, this collection mines the ambiance and mind of pre-Revolutionary Russia. These seven stories take us from the Miracle Mile of St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospekt, and a summer night in a Ukrainian village, to the fantastical psychological geographies of fathers, sons, and madmen. Augmenting Gogol’s visions are two disturbing tales by the foremost storyteller of Russia’s “Silver Age” Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919), and a coda from one of Anton Chekhov’s (1860–1904) stable of memorable characters.<br/>Contents include:<br/><br/>Nevsky Prospekt - Nikolai Gogol<br/>The Diary of a Madman - Nikolai Gogol <br/>Silence - Leonid Andreyev<br/>May Night or The Drowned Girl - Nikolai Gogol <br/>Laughter - Leonid Andreyev<br/>The Portrait - Nikolai Gogol <br/>On the Harmfulness of Smoking Tobacco - Anton Chekhov<br/><br/><br/><br/>About the Author<br/><br/><br/>Nikolai Gogol (18091852) was a preeminent Ukrainian-born author. He is particularly famous for those stories which veer in the direction of surrealism and the grotesque.<br/>Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was the author of hundreds of short stories and several plays and is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama.