This early work by Nikolai Gogol was originally published in 1835 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Viy' is a short story in which a philosophy student is terrorised by a witch as he holds a vigil over the the dead body of a beautiful girl. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born in Sorochintsi, Ukraine in 1809. In 1831, Gogol brought out the first volume of his Ukrainian stories, 'Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka'. It met with immediate success, and he followed it a year later with a second volume. 'The Nose' is regarded as a masterwork of comic short fiction, and 'The Overcoat' is now seen as one of the greatest short stories ever written; some years later, Dostoyevsky famously stated "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'. " He is seen by many contemporary critics as one of the greatest short story writers who has ever lived, and the Father of Russia's Golden Age of Realism.