Often quoted as Russian literature's greatest comedy, The Government Inspector is a trenchant satire of the corruption, greed and stupidity of petty officialdom, and the crowning achievement of Gogol's skills as a playwright.

This is Gogol's humour at its best, where the most irrelevant-seeming details and turns of phrase suddenly take on a bizarre life of their own.

Also including the 'Diary of Madman', this new translation of Petersburg Tales paint a critical yet hilarious portrait of a city riddled with pomposity and self-importance, masterfully juxtaposing nineteenth-century realism with madcap surrealism, and combining absurdist farce with biting satire.