Dead Souls

In Imperial Russia, Chichikov, a middle-class man, arrives in a small town and approaches landowners to collect their “dead souls”—serfs who have passed away but who are still registered as the landowner’s property. Although Chichikov initially reveals little about his purpose except to say that he does have a use for the souls, when his motive is exposed, the novel takes a dramatic turn, revealing the absurdity of the middle class.

Dead Souls was first published by Nikolai Gogol in 1842, an...