For those who wish to document, review, or otherwise immortalise Dead Souls Daily in print or digital form. All assets on this page are available for editorial use. For interview requests or review access, reach us at support@deadsoulsdaily.com.

Quick Facts

App Name Dead Souls Daily
Concept Russian literature's darkest lines, filed under the cheerful wellness labels they quietly mock
Developer Kevin Nealon (independent)
Category Lifestyle / Literature
Library 350+ quotes · 26 authors · 130+ works
Features Daily quote · Home Screen & Lock Screen widgets · shareable cards · saved collection & full Archive
Platform iOS 16.0 or later · Android
Version 1.4
Price Free — Unlock the Archive available
App Store View on the App Store →
Google Play View on Google Play →
Short Link deadsoulsdaily.com/get — sends readers to the correct store for their device
Website deadsoulsdaily.com
Instagram @deadsoulsdaily

About the App

Dead Souls Daily files the bleakest lines in Russian literature under the cheerful headers of wellness culture. "Wellness Wednesday" arrives with Dostoevsky on the suffering that is inevitable for a deep heart; "Monday Motivation" with Tolstoy observing that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. One quote lands each morning: the antidote to toxic positivity, delivered with a straight face.

Free, and with no account: the daily quote, a saved collection as long as your disposition requires, any passage exported as a card formatted for Instagram Stories, and the widget’s star, which files a quote without the app opening at all. Unlock the Archive, once for life or by the year, opens the whole library to browse and search, turns on the original Russian beside each translation cited to its part and chapter, and sets what the widget shows.

The roster spans the Golden and Silver Ages: Pushkin, Gogol and Lermontov through Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov, on to the poets: Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Blok and Pasternak. Two centuries of writers, and not one of them in the mood to tell you to cheer up.

Background

Dead Souls Daily began as a private project. Its developer’s wife had moved away from Moscow, and what she missed most was being surrounded by the language and the literature. The first version delivered one line a day to her phone. It has stayed independent since: no funding, no team, no advertising.

Quote from the developer

“Authenticating quotations was often more difficult than building the software. The same quote would appear attributed to different authors, translations varied significantly, and occasionally the same phrase would appear in multiple works. I spent a great deal of time comparing editions, translations, and sources in an effort to make the collection as reliable as possible.”

Kevin Nealon, developer, Dead Souls Daily

Screenshots

Device-framed store screenshots, ready to drop into an article. Click any image to save the full-resolution file. Frames shown are iPhone; the same screens appear on Android.

The Dead Souls Daily widget on an iPhone Home Screen, showing a Tolstoy quote from Anna Karenina with a star to save it
The daily quote screen in Dead Souls Daily, showing a Lermontov quote from A Hero of Our Time
The same Lermontov quote turned into the original Russian, cited to A Hero of Our Time, Princess Mary
A Dead Souls Daily Lock Screen widget beneath the clock, carrying the day’s quote
The Saved Sorrows collection, each quote offering Share, Remove and a switch to the Russian original
A Dead Souls Daily share card formatted for Instagram Stories, showing a Gogol quote from The Overcoat

App Icon

Suggested Description

In one line

“Dead Souls Daily delivers one masterpiece of Russian literature every morning — the antidote to toxic positivity. Free on iPhone and Android.”

Short paragraph

“Dead Souls Daily is a free app for iPhone and Android that files the bleakest lines in Russian literature under the cheerful headers of wellness culture. One quote arrives each morning, from Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and the Silver Age poets, each readable in the original Russian and cited to its part and chapter. Unlock the Archive opens a searchable library of more than 350.”

Contact

Press enquiries, review access, and interview requests may be submitted to support@deadsoulsdaily.com.