Dead Souls

A middle-class social climber named Chichikov embarks upon a journey to collect dead souls. These dead souls are in fact serfs who have died since the last census was taken though dead, they have not yet been removed from official records, and are therefore subject to taxation. In an entertaining story about Chichikov s bizarre plan to take out a loan against all the dead souls he acquires, Gogol presents his shady protagonist against a grimly humorous backdrop of supporting characters.