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The Diary of a Madman
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781918509571
Publisher: Lost Book Project
Published: Jan 22 2026
Pages: 44
Weight: 0.16
Height: 0.11 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol is one of the most important short stories in Russian literature and a foundational work of psychological fiction. First published in 1835 as part of Arabesques, this unsettling and darkly comic narrative takes the form of a civil servant's diary as his grip on reality gradually collapses.
The story follows Poprishchin, a minor bureaucrat in St. Petersburg, whose growing resentment, social humiliation, and obsession with rank lead him into delusion and madness. Through fragmented diary entries, Gogol traces the inner logic of insanity with chilling precision, showing how pride, isolation, and bureaucratic cruelty distort the self. As Poprishchin begins to believe he is the King of Spain, the line between satire and tragedy dissolves, revealing the devastating psychological cost of a rigid, dehumanizing social order.
Blending realism with absurdity, The Diary of a Madman is both a social satire and a pioneering study of mental breakdown. It anticipates modern psychological literature and influenced writers such as Dostoevsky, Kafka, and later modernists. The story remains essential reading for those interested in madness in literature, unreliable narration, bureaucracy, identity, and the origins of existential and absurdist fiction.
This edition presents a classic short work whose portrayal of alienation, delusion, and institutional power remains disturbingly relevant.
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