THE MODERN LIBRARY 3383 OF THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS 1736 DEAD SOULS The publishers will be pleased to send, upon request, an illustrated folder setting forth the purpose and scope of THE MODERN LIBRARY, and listing each volume in the series. Every reader of books will find titles he has been looking for, handsomely printed, in unabridged editions, and at an unusually low price. COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY MRS. EDWARD GARNETT INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT, 1936, Random House IS THE PUBLISHER OF THE MODERN LIBRARY BENNETT A. CERF. DONALD S. KLOPFER · ROBERT K. HAAS Manufactured in the United States of America By H. Wolff INTRODUCTION By CLIFFORD ODETS In all times and places the artist most valuable to mankind has been the one who insisted upon the right of critically viewing existing standards and institutions. When, as has often happened, this right has been denied the artist, he has generally found a way to encircle the denial and take it within the scope and parade of his work. Nikolai Gogol, in at least his two greatest works, the play, The Inspector General, and Dead Souls, performed this courageous feat beautifully. The brutal censorship imposed upon the great Russian empire of Gogol's time (1809-52) by its feudal lords and masters is comparable in our time to only that imposed upon the peoples of certain Fascist states. Enlightenment was not then a word to utter lightly on a muddy street corner. But Gogol set out to enlighten the Russian people, and his method was curiously simple. Of his central character Tchitchikov, in Dead Souls, he states, "Him I have taken as a type to show forth the vices and failings, rather than the merits and virtues, of the commonplace Russian individual; and the characters which revolve around him have also been selected for the purpose of demonstrating our national weaknesses and shortcomings.' Gogol's method was laughter of an epical size. He held up a mirror which gave back what it saw, but |