Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol

Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich (1809–52), Russian short story writer, novelist, and dramatist. His comic stories of Ukrainian peasant life and later bizarre tales set in St. Petersburg, such as “The Overcoat” (1872), put him among the most original of Russian authors. Adverse reaction in Russia to his satirical drama The Inspector-General (1836) drove Gogol abroad, where he wrote his greatest work, the picaresque novel Dead Souls (1842).