6 h 14 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
In a city ruled by rank, even a missing nose can threaten a man's place in the world.
Nikolai Gogol's The Mantle, and Other Stories brings together The Mantle, also known as The Overcoat, The Nose, and Diary of a Madman. In cold St Petersburg, poor clerks copy papers, count coins, and live beneath the gaze of officials who care deeply about rank.
Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin saves for a coat by giving up small comforts. Major Kovalyov panics when his nose disappears. Poprishchin hears dogs talking and dreams of deserving more. Gogol follows these strange premises with a straight face, finding laughter close to loneliness, vanity, and pain.
What you’ll discover
- A coat worth sacrifice Follow Akaky as evening tea and worn shoes become part of saving for a new coat.
- A most unsettling breakfast Join barber Ivan Yakovlevich as he finds a nose inside his fresh breakfast loaf.
- Pride without a nose Watch Major Kovalyov's pride in his rank collide with the panic of losing his nose.
- A clerk's private world Read Poprishchin's diary as longing and wounded pride accompany his loosening hold on reality.
- Laughter with an edge Enjoy a sly narrator whose wandering asides and deadpan remarks keep comedy close to pain.
Who will love it
For readers who love dark comedy, odd premises and sharp portraits of ordinary people, and anyone curious about the roots of modern Russian fiction.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Petersburg is a city of ranks
- A clerk who loves only his copying
- A new coat becomes a new life
- A nose that outranks its owner
- A poor clerk hears dogs talk
- How Gogol tells it, and what it means
Who’s who
- Akaky Akakievich BashmachkinA poor copying clerk who loves his handwriting, is mocked by colleagues, and comes to depend on a new coat.
- PetrovichA one eyed tailor who lives up a dark staircase, judges old clothes harshly, and makes the new coat.
- Major KovalyovA vain Petersburg official who is proud of his rank and is thrown into panic when his nose goes missing.
- Ivan YakovlevichA barber who finds a nose in his breakfast loaf and tries in fear to get rid of it.
- PoprishchinA low ranking clerk who writes a diary, longs for his director's daughter, and slowly loses his hold on reality.
- SophieThe director's daughter, whom Poprishchin watches and idealizes from far below her rank.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Mantle, and Other Stories
A clerk pins his hopes on a new coat in a city where rank, vanity and loneliness shape ordinary lives.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Mantle, and Other Stories gathers tales by Nikolai Gogol, the Russian writer who died in 1852. Most of them were written in the 1830s and early 1840s, when Gogol lived in St Petersburg, the cold, orderly capital of the Russian Empire.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Petersburg is a city of ranks
All of these tales are set in a world where rank decides almost everything. Under the tsars, Russian officials were ordered on a ladder of fourteen grades. Where you stood on it set your pay, your title and even how people spoke to you. Gogol's heroes sit on the lower rungs. They are clerks and minor officers who spend their days in government offices, and their hopes are small and exact.
The city itself is nearly a character. St Petersburg was built by Peter the Great on marshy ground at the edge of the Baltic. Its streets are straight, its buildings are grand, and its winters are brutal. Gogol, who came there from Ukraine as a young man hoping for a career, knew how cold and bewildering it could feel to a newcomer with little money. He puts that feeling into the weather, the long avenues and the snow.
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What is The Mantle by Gogol about?
It tells of Akaky Akakievich, a poor copying clerk in Petersburg whose old coat is beyond repair. His effort to buy a new one gives his small life meaning and sets the whole story in motion.
Is The Mantle the same as The Overcoat?
Yes. The Russian word can be rendered as mantle or overcoat, so different translations use different titles for the same tale. Gogol published it in 1842.
What does The Nose by Gogol mean?
It is a comic story in which a vain official loses his nose, which then walks around the city with higher rank than he has. It mocks vanity and a society obsessed with status.
The author
Nikolai Gogol
1809–1852 · Ukrainian-born Russian novelist
Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol (1809–1852) was a Russian writer born in what is now Ukraine. He lived in Saint Petersburg and Rome and died in Moscow. He wrote plays, stories, and novels. His works include The Inspector-General (1836), Taras Bulba (1835), The Overcoat (1842), and Dead Souls (1842).
More by Nikolai Gogol
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