Nikolai Gogol · Claud Field translation
The Nose
A nose leaves its owner and moves through St Petersburg with a rank of its own.
Read the story →Russian literature · Gogol and the absurd
Russian Absurdism
A nose becomes a state councillor. A clerk discovers he is a king. A coat promises a place in the world.
Three complete stories by Nikolai Gogol, in Claud Field’s English translations: rank, routine and humiliation carried past the point where ordinary life makes sense.
Nikolai Gogol · Claud Field translation
Memoirs of a Madman
Also known as Diary of a Madman.
A clerk’s dated entries turn status, desire and humiliation into an increasingly fractured reality.
Read the story →Nikolai Gogol · Claud Field translation
The Mantle
Also known as The Overcoat.
A copying clerk’s new coat becomes a fragile promise of dignity in an indifferent city.
Read the story →Before absurdism had a name
Gogol’s nineteenth-century stories are presented here as precursors to later absurdist writing. This is a reading connection, rather than a claim that Gogol belonged to a later literary movement.
Continue with Horatio
For NOMOTO MEDIA’s contemporary satire, follow Shakespeare and Horatio through the institutions and inventions of modern life.
The Horatio Chronicles — A History of Human Fuckery →Edition and sources
All three texts use the same Claud Field translation in The Mantle and Other Stories. Memoirs of a Madman is also known as Diary of a Madman; The Mantle is also known as The Overcoat. Edition titles are retained on the reading pages.
The source catalog lists the English edition as public domain in the USA and credits Claud Field as translator. Each reading page includes attribution, digitization credits and the source edition’s full license.