A New York Review Books Original<br><br>Nikolai Gogol's <i>Dead Souls </i>is an undisputed masterpiece of world literature. The tale of Chichikov, an affably cunning con who establishes a thriving trade in “dead souls”-serfs who though no longer alive can still, he finds, be profitably sold-is at the same time a brilliant spoof of a corrupt society, full of the living dead. Most important, however, Gogol's great novel is a sheer delight, a book spilling over with humor and passion and absurdity, and fed by an unflagging stream of stylistic invention. At once a phantasmagoria and a work of careful, if not a little mind-boggling, realism, <i>Dead Souls </i>is a supremely living work of art.<br><br>Donald Rayfield's new translation at last provides English readers with a version of this great novel that does justice to the wonderful richness of the original. Noting the theatrical nature of Gogol's inspiration and style, Rayfield has given his English sentences a pitch and presence that allows them to be spoken aloud throughout. He also presents a much fuller text than has previously been available to English readers of the controversial second part of the book, which Gogol sought to destroy.<br><br>Rayfield's synoptic text draws on remaining sections of both the first and second drafts of this second part, revealing it as a major literary achievement in its own right.