The Overcoat (sometimes translated as The Mantle, 1842) is one of the most influential short stories ever written. A destitute government clerk saves for years to afford a new overcoat, only to have it stolen on the night he first wears it — with a ghostly coda that opens into something much larger. Dostoyevsky’s famous claim that all Russian literature “came out from under Gogol’s Overcoat” captures its foundational status.
The other stories in this collection demonstrate the same tragicomic genius. Download the free EPUB to read the story from which, arguably, Russian literature was born.