Dead Souls is a novel written in 1842 by Russian author Nikolai Gogol. The literature & fiction classic was written to demonstrate the flaws and faults of the Russian mentality and character. Nikolai Gogol masterfully portrays those defects through the novel's main character Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov and the people whom he encounters in his endeavors. The people that he encounters are typical of the Russian middle-class of the time. Nikolai Gogol, despite supposedly completing the trilogy's second part, destroyed it shortly before his death. The novel ends in mid sentence, but it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form. Dead Souls, initially a Russian regional & cultural best seller, the literature & fiction classicis has become a worldwide best selling book that is often required textbook reading. Dead Souls is a classic literature & fiction novel but it encompasses several other broad fiction genres such as history & criticism.
