The Nose

The Nose,
Victor Gogol
Melville House

"On the 25th of March, there took place in Petersburg a most extraordinarily strange occurrence."


While enjoying a breakfast of bread and onions (yum) the local barber, Ivan Yakovlevich, finds a nose in the bread. Of course, he recognizes the
nose. It belongs or belonged to one Collegiate
Assessor Kovalyov, whom he shaved every
Wednesday and Sunday. His lovely wife thinks that he cut off the nose while snookered. Of course, like you do, he tries to get rid of the evidence. Not as easy as it sounds, actually.
Well, it gets weird after this, we find that a nose can have a mind of it's own. If you can track this fun story down, I recommend that you do. It's delightfully absurd, and pokes fun at the bourgeois society of the time.
I am very partial to the Melville House, Art of the Novella edition.

Melville House publishes single editions of just one Novella for a great price as part of an overall project, called the Art of the Novella.
Here's a special review series on their webbie about the 'Nose'. Including a cool retro cartoon based on the novella.
What a great idea. I can't tell you how many collections I have bought just to get one story that I really want to read. They are beautifully printed and are reasonably priced. Each are colored a different color, and when I get more than two, I'm sure they will look great on my shelf.  

Buy the 'the Nose' at Melville House