St. John's Eve by Nikolai Gogol
Author: Nikolai Gogol | Published: 1830
St. John's Eve Synopsis
Excerpt:
Thoma Grigorovitch had one very strange eccentricity: to the day of his death he never liked to tell the same thing twice. There were times when, if you asked him to relate a thing afresh, he would interpolate new matter, or alter it so that it was impossible to recognise it. Once upon a time, one of those gentlemen who, like the usurers at our yearly fairs, clutch and beg and steal every sort of frippery, and issue mean little volumes, no thicker than an A B C book, every month, or even every week, wormed this same story out of Thoma Grigorovitch, and the latter completely forgot about it. But that same young gentleman, in the pea-green caftan, came from Poltava, bringing with him a little book, and, opening it in the middle, showed it to us. Thoma Grigorovitch was on the point of setting his spectacles astride of his nose, but recollected that he had forgotten to wind thread about them and stick them together with wax, so he passed it over to me. As I understand nothing about reading and writing, and do not wear spectacles, I undertook to read it. I had not turned two leaves when all at once he caught me by the hand and stopped me.
About Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Gogol was a Russian writer who is credited with introducing realism to Russian literature in the 19th century. He wrote plays, short stories and novels that focused on the lives of ordinary Russian people, often capturing their struggles and hardships with dark humor and satire. His works are considered classics of Russian literature, influencing generations of writers from Anton Chekhov to modern day authors.
Born in 1809 in Ukraine, Gogol had an uneventful childhood until he moved to St Petersburg at age 19 to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. There he met influential literary figures such as Alexander Pushkin who encouraged him to write more realistically about everyday life rather than the romanticized tales popular among his peers. Find out more about Nikolai Gogol at sevenov.com.
Nikolai Gogol's Books on PageVio
Short Stories: The Fair at Sorochyntsi | St. John's Eve | May Night, or the Drowned Maiden | The Lost Letter: A Tale Told by the Sexton of the N...Church | The Night Before Christmas | A Terrible Vengeance | Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt | A Bewitched Place | The Old World Landowners | The Viy | How the Two Ivans Quarrelled | The Mysterious Portrait | Nevsky Prospekt | Diary of a Madman | The Nose | The Carriage | The Overcoat
Here's a full list of Nikolai Gogol's books.