Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) was one of nineteenth-century Russia’s greatest writers and a profound influence on Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vladimir Nabokov, and countless other authors. His best-known works include the novel Dead Souls (1842) and the stories “The Overcoat,” “The Nose,” and “Memoirs of a Madman.” In 1852, he burned most of his manuscripts, including the second part of Dead Souls. He died nine days later.