Dead Souls Annotated

Since its distribution in 1842, Dead Souls has been praised as a remarkably reasonable picture of commonplace Russian life. Chichikov, brushes the backwoods haggling for "dead spirits" (expired serfs who actually address cash to anybody sufficiently sharp to exchange them), and we are acquainted with a Dickensian cast of laborers, landowners, and scheming insignificant authorities, not many of whom can oppose the alluring illogic of Chichikov's recommendation. Albeit the novel closures in mid-sentence, it is generally viewed as complete in the surviving structure.