The comic spirit in Russian literature is hardly even suspected
of existing by most English readers. They know nothing, for instance, of the succession of satirical comedies which through more than a century have been the pride of the Russian stage. They are almost unacquainted as yet with the comic side of Doatoevsky's genius, which is moat prominently shown in some of his short stories not yet given to us in English. There ie, therefore, reason to be grateful for a new edition of a twenty-year-old translation of Gogol's Dead Souls (T. Fisher Unwin, 6s.), which Mr. Stephen Graham, in a new preface, rightly describes as "the greatest humorous novel in the Russian language." Like other famous comic romances, it tells the story of a chain of adventures loosely strong together ; but Chichikov, its hero, who is at once a ' shameless impostor and a sympathetic human being, is an entirely Russian character. Unfortunately the present anonymous version leaves much to be desired, while the size of the print is likely to discourage many reader; and it still rem 'ems true, as Mr. Maurice Baring has said, that " whoever given England a really fine translation of this work will do his country a service."
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