The Night Before Christmas

(Hardback)

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Description

Written in 1831 by the father of Russian literature, this beloved tale features the adventures of Vakula, the blacksmith, in his fight against the devil, who has stolen the moon above the village of Dikanka and is wreaking havoc on its inhabitants, all to win the love of the most beautiful girl in town, Oksana. Zany and uproarious, prefiguring both the Russian satirical and realist traditions, drawing inspiration from the village folk tales of Gogol's native Ukraine, this stands as a monument of Russian literature.

Reviews

For lit nerds and loved ones who are notoriously hard to shop for, you cant go wrong with these festively bound classics. . . . Their size makes them perfectly stocking-stuffable. Entertainment Weekly, The Must List

Leave it to the folks at Penguinwho gave us Gothed-out editions of horror classics for Halloweento package these . . . slim Yuletide-themed volumes. Newsday, Best Books to Give as Holiday Gifts

Remember how Christmas was celebrated before Black Friday with these 19th-century authors, in small uniform volumes wrapped in pretty jackets. USA Today, Holiday Gift Books So Pretty, No Need to Wrap

Beautifully designed. The Washington Post

Author Bio

Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) was the son of a Ukrainian gentleman farmer. He attended a variety of boarding schools, where he proved an indifferent student but was admired for his theatrical abilities. In 1828 he moved to St. Petersburg and began to publish stories, and by the mid-1830s he had established himself in the literary world and been warmly praised by Pushkin. In 1836, his play The Inspector-General was attacked as immoral, and he left Russia, remaining abroad for most of the next dozen years. During that time he wrote two of his best-known stories, 'The Nose' and 'The Overcoat,' and in 1842 he published the first section of his masterpiece Dead Souls. Gogol became increasingly religious as the years passed, and in 1847 he became the disciple of an Orthodox priest who influenced him to burn the second part of Dead Souls and then abandon writing altogether. After undertaking an extreme fast, he died at the age of forty-two.