The Diary of a Madman, and Other Russian Sketches by Nikolai Gogol, Leonid Andreyev & Anton Chekhov

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The Diary of a Madman, and Other Russian Sketches

by Nikolai Gogol, Leonid Andreyev & Anton Chekhov

Narrator Stefan Rudnicki

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Length 6 hours 11 minutes

Language English

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Summary
About the authors
About the narrator

Centering on the picaresque realism of Nikolai Gogol’s (1809–1852) mid-nineteenth-century visions of the extraordinary in everyday life, this collection mines the ambiance and mind of pre-Revolutionary Russia. These seven stories take us from the Miracle Mile of St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospekt, and a summer night in a Ukrainian village, to the fantastical psychological geographies of fathers, sons, and madmen. Augmenting Gogol’s visions are two disturbing tales by the foremost storyteller of Russia’s “Silver Age” Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919), and a coda from one of Anton Chekhov’s (1860–1904) stable of memorable characters.

Contents include:

Nevsky Prospekt - Nikolai GogolThe Diary of a Madman - Nikolai Gogol Silence - Leonid AndreyevMay Night or The Drowned Girl - Nikolai Gogol Laughter - Leonid AndreyevThe Portrait - Nikolai Gogol On the Harmfulness of Smoking Tobacco - Anton Chekhov

Classics Fiction

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) was a Ukrainian-born Russian writer often called the “father of modern Russian realism” because he was one of the first Russian writers to criticize his country’s way of life. The novels Taras Bul’ba and Dead Souls (1842), the play The Inspector-General (1836, 1842), and the short stories “Diary of a Madman,” “The Nose,” and “The Overcoat” (1842) are among his best-known works. With their scrupulous and scathing realism, ethical criticism, as well as philosophical depth, they remain some of the most important works of world literature.

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), the author of hundreds of short stories and several plays, is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama. He described the Russian life of his time using a deceptively simple technique devoid of obtrusive literary devices, thereby becoming the prominent representative of the late nineteenth-century Russian realist school. His early stream-of-consciousness style strongly influenced the literary world, including writers such as James Joyce.

Stefan Rudnicki is a Grammy-winning audiobook producer and an award-winning narrator who has won several Audie Awards and been named one of AudioFile’s Golden Voices. A longtime fan of Weird fiction, and of Robert W. Chambers in particular, Stefan’s dramatic adaptation of The King in Yellow received the Madolin Cervantes Award from the Society of Stage Directors & Choreographers and was staged by him at the Donnell Library Center in New York City.