Nikolay Gogol - The Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector, and Selected Stories

DIARY OF A MADMAN, THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR AND SELECTED STORIES

NIKOLAY VASILYEVICH GOGOL was born in 1809 in Poltava province, into a small gentry family of Ukrainian and Polish extraction. After finishing gymnasium in 1828, he went to St Petersburg and secured a minor post in an obscure government ministry. With the publication of his first collection of stories, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (two volumes, 18312), he became famous, and began to meet important writers, notably Pushkin. During much of the 1830s, he experimented with different literary forms, including history, drama, essays and fiction. Two major collections of his stories, Arabesques and Mirgorod, were published in 1835; The Nose and The Carriage came out separately in 1836; and The Overcoat was included in his collected works of 1842. His play The Government Inspector received its premire in 1836, and Part I of his masterpiece, the novel Dead Souls, appeared in 1842 to nearly unanimous acclaim. After 1836, he lived mainly abroad, especially in Rome, insisting that he needed a distant perspective on Russia to write about it. Throughout the 1840s he was increasingly tormented by physical, psychological and religious problems, but produced several important works of non-fiction. He also worked steadily on Part II of Dead Souls, but burned much of it in 1845, and again in 1852, shortly before his death, possibly from self-starvation complicated by typhus and despair.

ROBERT A. MAGUIRE was the Boris Bakhmeteff Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies at Columbia University. He taught at Yale, Princeton and Harvard, and was a Visiting Fellow at St Antonys College, Oxford. His two main areas of specialization, on which he wrote widely, were the Soviet period and the early nineteenth century. Among his books are Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the 1920s (1968; 3rd edn, 2000), Gogol from the Twentieth Century (1974) and Exploring Gogol (1994). His translations include the works of several contemporary Polish poets, notably Wisawa Szymborska and Tadeusz Rzewicz, and Andrei Belys Symbolist novel Petersburg (with John Malmstad, 1978). He received a Ford Foundation Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and several awards for published work and service to his field of study. Robert A. Maguire died in 2005.

RONALD WILKS studied language and literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, after training as a Naval interpreter, and later Russian literature at London University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1972. Among his translations for Penguin Classics are My Childhood, My Apprenticeship and My Universities by Gorky, Diary of a Madman by Gogol, filmed for Irish Television, The Golovlyov Family by Saltykov-Shchedrin, How Much Land Does a Man Need?, Master and Man and Other Stories by Tolstoy, Tales of Belkin and Other Prose Writings by Pushkin, and The Shooting Party by Chekhov and several volumes of his stories. He has also translated The Little Demon by Sologub for Penguin.

NIKOLAY GOGOL

Diary of a Madman, The Government Inspector and Selected Stories

Translated with Notes by RONALD WILKS
With an Introduction by ROBERT A. MAGUIRE

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN CLASSICS

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Published in Penguin Classics 2005
1

Chronology and Introduction Robert A. Maguire, 2004, 2005
Further Reading, Publishing History and Notes, and Table of Ranks Ronald Wilks, 2005
Nevsky Prospekt, The Carriage and The Government Inspector translations Ronald Wilks, 2005
All other translations Ronald Wilks, 1972, revised 2005
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EISBN: 9781101488423

1809 20 March: Born in Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, Ukraine

1821 Enters Gymnasium at Nezhin (Ukraine)

1825 Death of father

1828 Graduates from Nezhin, leaves for St Petersburg

1829 Publication of Italy (poem) and Hans Kchelgarten (verse idyll)

Spends AugustSeptember in Lbeck, Germany. Secures minor clerical job in civil service

1830 Publication of Bisavryuk (St Johns Eve, story), and one chapter of The Hetman (novel, never completed)

Auditions unsuccessfully for Imperial Theatres. Another minor clerical job. Studies painting at Academy of Arts

1831 Publication of the article Woman (the first under his own name). Publication of Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, Part I (The Fair at Sorochintsy, St Johns Eve, A May Night, or the Drowned Maiden, The Lost Letter)

Meets Aleksandr Pushkin for the first time. Becomes a history teacher in a private girls school

1832 Publication of Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, Part II (Christmas Eve, A Terrible Vengeance, Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt, A Bewitched Place)

18325 Intense writing activity, in fiction, plays, history, essays, most never completed; includes sketches for a historical play Alfred (published 1889), and Sketches for a Drama from Ukrainian History

1834 Publication of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich (story), and two articles on history

Appointed adjunct professor of history at St Petersburg University

1835 January: Publication of Arabesques (articles and three stories: Diary of a Madman, Nevsky Prospekt, The Portrait). March: Publication of Mirgorod (Old World Landowners, Taras Bulba, How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich, Viy)

Begins work on Dead Souls, Part I. December: Leaves teaching post.

1836 19 April: Premire of The Government Inspector (play). Publication of stories The Nose, The Carriage

6 June: Leaves for Western Europe, travels for the rest of the year

1837 29 January: Death of Pushkin. 26 March: Arrives in Rome

183841 Lives in Rome. Travels in Europe, makes two trips back to Russia. Works on Dead Souls