Oblomov

Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a kind, intelligent and wealthy young landowner, lives in a flat in St Petersburg and hardly ever gets up from his sofa; the whole first part of the novel passes while he tries, and fails, to get out of bed. His energetic friend Stolz, half German, tries to rouse him, and he falls in love with the lively Olga, who wants to bring him back to life, but the pull of idleness and of his childhood dreams of the peaceful family estate, Oblomovka, is stronger than love.

Ivan Goncharov (1812–1891) published the novel in 1859, and 'Oblomovism' became the Russian word for idle, dreamy apathy. It is both a comedy and a sad portrait of a whole class of Russian gentry. The English version is by C. J. Hogarth. Compare Turgenev's Fathers and Sons.