# Is "Dead Souls (Myortvye dushi)" by Nikolai Gogol a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Dead Souls (Myortvye dushi) by Nikolai Gogol (Universitetskaya Tipografiya, 1842) is identified by: First edition: Universit. Census confirmed on the Russian first: Moscow University Press, Moscow, 1842 is the true first.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition: Universit
- (University Printing House / Moscow University Press), Moscow, 1842
- Large octavo (approx
- 25 x 17 cm), 475 pp. including half-title and title
- Print run of 2,400 copies
- The defining point is the censor-imposed title: the Moscow censor rejected the bare title 'Dead Souls' as an attack on serfdom, and the half-title and title page therefore read 'The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls
- Publisher imprint reads Universitetskaya Tipografiya

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Nikolai Gogol |
| Publisher | Universitetskaya Tipografiya |
| Year | 1842 |
| True first | British edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition: Universit |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition: Universit. Tip. (University Printing House / Moscow University Press), Moscow, 1842. Large octavo (approx. 25 x 17 cm), 475 pp. including half-title and title. Print run of 2,400 copies. The defining point is the censor-imposed title: the Moscow censor rejected the bare title 'Dead Souls' as an attack on serfdom, and the half-title and title page therefore read 'The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls. A Poem' — Gogol accepted the change but designed the title page so that the imposed first element is set in markedly smaller type and 'DEAD SOULS' dominates. The engraved upper wrapper, designed by Gogol himself, is very rare and is the point that separates the finest copies; most survive rebound in contemporary or near-contemporary quarter leather over marbled boards. Illustrations by A. A. Agin and E. E. Bernardsky belong to later illustrated issues, not to the 1842 first.

## Is this the true first?
Census confirmed on the Russian first: Moscow University Press, Moscow, 1842 is the true first. One refinement to the census wording: the first English-language appearance, 'Home Life in Russia. By a Russian Noble. Revised by the Editor of "Revelations of Siberia." In Two Volumes' (London: Hurst and Blackett, Successors to Henry Colburn, 13 Great Marlborough Street, 1854), is better described as an unauthorized and heavily doctored adaptation than as a piracy in the strict sense. It renders Part One only, with an altered ending, whole passages expunged and imaginative flourishes added, and was marketed to a Crimean-War-era British public as factual reportage on Russian life. Gogol is nowhere named on the title page — the attribution is to 'A Russian Noble' — and the volumes are bound in publisher's olive-green cloth, blind-stamped, spines lettered in gilt. It is itself a collected book alongside the Moscow 1842 first. Note that several dealer catalogues transcribe the title-page phrase as 'By a Russian Nobel'; the book itself reads 'A RUSSIAN NOBLE,' so treat 'Nobel' as a catalogue-transcription artifact rather than a point of issue.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue is documented for either the 1842 Moscow first or the 1854 London adaptation. The reprint traps are the later illustrated Russian issues carrying the Agin/Bernardsky plates, which are often mistaken for the first, and the many later English translations — Hogarth, Garnett and others — which are 'first thus' only. The 1887 Vizetelly-era and subsequent London printings are common reprints.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Dead Souls (Myortvye dushi)* by Nikolai Gogol a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/dead-souls-myortvye-dushi
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.