The Overcoat

Nicolai Gogol's short story "The Overcoat" had an immediate and profound effect on Russian literature when it was published in 1842. It has often been cited as the cornerstone of the Russian realistic school of fiction - as evidenced by Dostoyevsky's famous statement "We all come out from under Gogol's Overcoat."

In addition to "The Overcoat," this collection contains the story "The Nose," the hilarious and disturbing tale of a socially ambitious man who awakes one morning to find that his nose is missing. Franz Kafka is said to have drawn the inspiration for his Metamorphosis from this disconcerting tale.

"The overcoat belonged to Akaky Akayevitch, a poor government clerk whom it had cost a good part of his yearly salary and untold privations to buy. He had owned it but a day when it was stolen from him, and within a few days more he had died from exposure. His ghost haunted the neighborhood that had known him and stripped overcoats from the shoulders of passersby. But there is infinite pathos and richness of imagination in the telling." -Wilson's Ficiton Catalog

"The subject of The Overcoat was suggested to Gogol at a tea party in Petersburg. The story made everybody laugh, everybody, that is, except Gogol. To the amazement of the whole company, Gogol lowered his head, looking sad and dejected; he felt pity for the poor civil servant. The plot of The Overcoat was already stirring in his mind.

"Gogol draws the character of the inoffensive civil servant, the hero of The Overcoat with a compassion, simplicity, gentle humour, and seeming casualness of style that makes it one of the greatest achievements of his genius. With this story Gogol began a new chapter in Russian literature in which the underdog and social misfit is treated not as a nuisance, or a figure of fun, or an object of charity, but as a human being who has as much right to happiness as anyone else." -From the Introduction by David Magarshack

Bentley Library-Bound Standard Fiction Reprints are printed on high-quality 55-lb. book paper. The bindings are sewn, not glued, and each book is covered with a sturdy water-resistant Pyroxylin library binding. This high-quality construction ensures that these books will last for many years.

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