One of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town and visits a succession of landowners to make each a strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these “souls” as collateral to reinvent himself as a gentleman. In this ebullient masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov, and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Bernard Guilbert Guerney Book order (chronological)


Doctor Zhivago
- 120 pages
- 5 hours of reading
This modern classic by Boris Pasternak follows the events of the Russian Revolution and of life in the young Soviet Union up to about 1939. The story is a personal account, illustrated mostly by the effects of the Revolution on the main character in the novel, Yury Zhivago. We follow the changes in Zhivago's life, and the lives of those whom he comes in contact. So it is more than a historical report - it is a very human novel.