The Overcoat: And Other Tales of Good and Evil, Paperback

The five other ``Tales of Good and Evil`` in this superb collection demonstrate the broad range of Gogol's literary palette in his short fiction: the fantastic, supernaturally tinged ``The Terrible Vengeance,`` the comic portraiture of ``Ivan Fydorovich Shponka and His Aunt,`` the tragic moral realism of ``The Portrait`` and ``Nevsky Avenue,`` and the rampaging satire and absurdism of his send-up of Russian upper-class stupidity, ``The Nose.`` The stories offer the reader the perfect introduction to the imaginative genius of Gogol, which was to flower so triumphantly in his masterpiece, Deal Souls.