This is the story of a nose. No, really -- it's the story of a nose that leaves the face of an official in St. Petersburg (the Russian St. Petersburg, the one in Florida wasn't even a proper village when Gogol was alive). The nose leaves this man's face and wanders off to have a life of its own.

It does strange stuff, too, What's to expect?

Seriously, it's a nose.

In A History of Russian Literature, the critic D.S. Mirsky writes: "The Nose is a piece of sheer play, almost sheer nonsense. In it more than anywhere else Gogol displays his extraordinary magic power of making great comic art out of nothing."

Nikolai Gogol. You've got to love him

Author: Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Aegypan
Published: 06/01/2011
Pages: 42
Weight: 0.52lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.25d
ISBN: 9781463897352
Audience: Ages 9-12

About the Author
Gogol, Nikolai Vasil'evich: - "Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809 - 1852) was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist, novelist and short story writer whose work was strongly influenced by Ukrainian culture. His early works, such as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and folklore. His later writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire (The Government Inspector, Dead Souls). The novel Taras Bulba (1835) and the play Marriage (1842), along with the short stories Diary of a Madman, The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich, The Portrait and The Carriage, round out the tally of his best-known works."