Pupil Curates Literary Collection
Congratulations to Sixth Former Patrick Maxwell, who has selected stories for a collection of tales by Nikolai Gogol, which has been published by New York-based independent publisher, Warbler Press.
As well as curating the stories, Patrick has written the Afterword to the edition, which features translations of Gogol’s stories set in Ukraine and St Petersburg.
Born in Ukraine and often referred to as the father of Russian realism, Gogol was a humourist, dramatist and novelist, whose work was influential in the 19th Century. His works, written in Russian, significantly influenced the direction of Russian literature, most significantly his novel Dead Souls and his short story ‘The Overcoat’, which Nabokov called ‘the greatest Russian short story ever written.’
For this volume, Patrick selected stories including: ‘The Fair at Sorochintsï,’ first published in Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka – the short story collection which launched Gogol’s career and made him famous overnight; ‘The Viy,’ a horror novella; ‘The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich,’ one of Gogol’s most humorous stories and his most well-known tales: ‘The Diary of a Madman,’ ‘The Nose,’ and ‘The Overcoat’.
Patrick’s Afterword to the volume is entitled ‘Nikolai Gogol and the Scourge of National Identity’ and the book also includes a biographical timeline.
Selected Stories of Nikolai Gogol is available to buy here.