Russia's first major novel, and perhaps still its most popular, Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls is a comic epic of greed and gluttony that is admired not only for its colorful cast of characters and devastating satire, but also for its sense of moral fervor.The anti-hero of the novel is a man named Chichikov, who hatches a brilliant plan to get rich quick. He will journey through Russia and buy up, at reduced rates, the recently deceased serfs of landowners,...