This story takes place in a bucolic small town of Mirgorod (Myrhorod in Ukrainian), written in the style featuring grotesque, realistic portrayals of the characters. The two Ivans are gentlemen landowners, neighbors and great friends, each one almost being the opposite image of the other. Ivan Ivanovich is tall, thin, and well-spoken, for example, while Ivan Nikiforovich is short, fat, and cuts to the point with a biting honesty. One day, Ivan Ivanovich notices his friend's servant hanging some clothes out to dry as well as some military implements, especially a Turkish rifle that interests him. He goes over to Nikiforovich's house and offers to trade it for a brown pig and two sacks of oats, but his friend is unwilling to part with it and calls Ivan Ivanovich a goose, which terribly offends him. After this, they begin to hate each other.

The works of Gogol are compiled here with a biography about his life and times. Works include: The Calash The Cloak Dead Souls The Inspector-General The Mantle A May Night Memoirs of a Madman The Mysterious Portrait The Nose St. John’s Eve The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich Taras Bulba The Viy

This is a new translation from the original Russian manuscript of Gogol's classic Nevsky Avenue. This edition contains an Afterword by the Translator, a timeline of Gogol's life and works and an Index of Gogol's individual works. Originally published in a collection called "Petersburg stories", this is one of the first uses of the technique of the grotesque, which was largely created by Gogol and copied (along with tragi-comic surrealism) by Kafka.

In Mirgorod live two distinguished gentlemen - Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich. Compatriots find them both beautiful people, but between them there is some dissimilarity. Ivan Ivanovich is lean and tall; Ivan Nikiforovich is slightly lower, but much spread in thickness. Ivan Ivanovich's head is like a radish with a tail down, Ivan Nikiforovich's head is like a radish with a tail up. Ivan Ivanovich is extremely delicate and sensitive man who in conversation would never say a bad word. Ivan Nikiforovich, on the contrary, drag these words often.Both of them live in their own homes in the neighborhood.

Nikolai Gogol's short story is a sublime work of tragi-comedy. In it, he brilliantly ridicules the Ukrainian passion for litigation and reveals life as something really rather absurd. Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich are the greatest of friends-until the day they begin a foolish quarrel that culminates in that very worst of insults: "And you, Ivan Ivanovich, are a goose." From that moment on, not another word is spoken between them as they choose instead to fight out their differences in the courts. But it seems theirs is a lawsuit that is set to run for years and years.