"THE GREATEST RUSSIAN SHORT STORY EVER WRITTEN": FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF THE GARNETT TRANSLATION OF GOGOL'S "OVERCOAT"

GOGOL, Nikolai V. The Overcoat and Other Stories. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Octavo, original light green cloth, original dust jacket. $1650.

First American edition of Garnett's acclaimed English translation from the original Russian of some of Gogol's best-known short stories, featuring the influential title piece.

Nabokov called the masterful title piece of this collection "the greatest Russian short story ever written." First published in 1842, "The Overcoat" (sometimes translated as "The Cloak") had a profound influence on the Russian realist movement; author and literary critic Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé said "We all came out from under Gogol's Overcoat." This volume also includes "The Carriage," "The Nevsky Prospect," "A Madman's Diary," "The Prisoner," "The Nose" and "The Portrait," in English versions done by "Russian literature's most famous English translator, Constance Garnett" (New York Times). Published in the U.K. in the same year by Chatto & Windus. This first U.S. edition was part of the six-volume Knopf series of Gogol's works. Ettlinger & Gladstone, 48.

Book near-fine, spine slightly toned, in a very good example of the scarce dust jacket, price-clipped, with small edge chips and short closed tears, spine and edges gently toned.