In the plain text version text in italics is enclosed by underscores
(_italics_); small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS;
words in bold are represented as in =bold=, and superscript text is
represented with the sign ^{text}.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated
variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used
has been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.
The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added to
the public domain.
* * * * *
[Illustration: =Nikolai V. Gogol=]
SHORT-STORY
MASTERPIECES