Taras Bulba, and Other Tales. The Illustrated Gift Edition

An old Cossack colonel greets his sons home from the seminary by knocking the elder down, then takes them both to the Sich and a war that will test every bond of blood and faith. Gogol moves between slaughter and lyric within a paragraph, and the steppe itself is the book's largest character. Paintings of riders, siege and horizon open this Gilded Library volume; the decoration is sabre, horsetail standard and steppe grass.