Petersburg Tales

The tales of Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852), which are traditionally grouped into the cycle of "Petersburg tales," are not simply dedicated to one city, but hold a unique place in the writer's oeuvre. "Nevsky Prospect," "The Nose," "The Portrait," "The Overcoat,"... and "Notes of a Madman" are largely autobiographical, steeped in social issues and vivid depth. Here, the originality of the plots and subtle humor are heightened by the whimsy and fantastical nature of the images, poeticism coexists with sharp truthfulness, and topicality remains relevant. Reflections on talent and its demise, on human vanity, insatiable desires and selfishness, on beauty and its deceptiveness in the contemporary world of the author—all of this, wrapped in artfully light Gogolian prose, makes the "Petersburg tales" an unmatched and timeless creation of the writer.