Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol (1809–1852) is a classic author whose works are in the public domain.
Gogol's picaresque masterpiece follows a provincial schemer traveling through rural Russia collecting documents of dead serfs, revealing a landscape of stupidity, venality, and absurdity that lies beneath the empire's surface. This grotesque comedy remains modern in its refusal to offer redemption, presenting instead a Russia trapped in its own corruption.
