This collection contains Gogol's three completed plays The Government Inspector, which satirises a corrupt society was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest play in the Russian language and is still widely studied in schools and universities: "I resolved to gather into one heap everything that was bad[...]

In this ever-topical satire of small-town corruption and cravenness, bumbling and inefficient town officials are thrown into a panic when they learn that a Government Inspector is coming, perhaps incognito. When a well-dressed rogue arrives, he quickly realizes he is presumed to be the Inspector and[...]