The Devil and his chaotic retinue descend on officially atheist Stalinist Moscow, wreaking supernatural havoc on the city's corrupt literary establishment, while a disgraced writer known only as 'the Master' and his devoted lover Margarita fight to reclaim his suppressed novel about Pontius Pilate. Bulgakov's satirical masterpiece interweaves this dark comedy with the Master's own retelling of Christ's trial and crucifixion.
Books mentioned in The Master and Margarita (8)
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “'...who are you, then?' 'I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.' (epigraph, attributed to Goethe, Faust)”
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: “a sweet awe creeps into one's heart at the thought that in this house there is now ripening the future author of a Don Quixote or a Faust, or, devil take me, a Dead Souls!”
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol: “the future author of a Don Quixote or a Faust, or, devil take me, a Dead Souls!”
The Inspector General by Nikolai Gogol: “You can imagine the noise that will arise when one of them, for starters, offers the reading public The Inspector General or, if worse comes to worst, Evgeny Onegin.”
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin: “offers the reading public The Inspector General or, if worse comes to worst, Evgeny Onegin.”
The Annals by Tacitus: “the passage in the fifteenth book of Tacitus's famous Annals, the forty-fourth chapter, where mention is made of the execution of Jesus, was nothing but a later spurious interpolation.”
The Covetous Knight by Alexander Pushkin: “the actor Kurolesov, Savva Potapovich, especially invited here, will perform excerpts from The Covetous Knight by the poet Pushkin.”
Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault: “'A cat is not supposed to wear trousers, Messire,' the cat replied ... 'Puss-in-Boots exists only in fairy tales, Messire.'”