Excerpt from Dead SoulsEarly in 1830, one of his stories, known in England as St. John's Eve, appeared anonymously in a Russian periodical, and shortly afterwards he secured a very insignificant appoint ment at the Ministry of Appanages. Here his official duties were paltry in the extreme, but he exercised his mind to advantage by studying the clerks and functionaries around him, portraits of many of whom are to be found in his works.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.