Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life. Chichikov, combs the back country wheeling and dealing for "dead souls" (deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them), and we are introduced to a Dickensian cast of peasants, landowners, and conniving petty officials, few of whom can resist the seductive illogic of Chichikov's proposition. Although the novel ends in mid-sentence, it is usually regarded as complete in the extant form.