Dead Souls: Chichikov's Journeys; or, Home Life in Old Russia (The Collector's Library of Famous Editions)

xvi, [2], 484 pp. Blue full leather, gilt titles and decorations, all edges gilt, silk moire endpapers, ribbon marker bound in. Translated from the Russian by Bernard Guilbert Guerney, introduction by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, color illustrations by Lucille Corcos. A satirical novel published in Russia in 1842, which borrows themes and styles from Dante's Inferno and Homer's Odyssey, but speaks directly to the problems of Russian culture at the time.