Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (1868–1936), primarily known as Maxim (or Maksim) Gorky, was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. Around fifteen years before success as a writer, he frequently changed jobs and roamed across the Russian Empire; these experiences would later influence his writing. Gorky’s most famous works were The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl, The Song of the Stormy Petrel, The Mother, Summerfolk and Children of the Sun. He had an association with fellow Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov; Gorky would later write his memoirs on both of them.

Gorky was active with the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, and for a time closely associated himself with Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov’s Bolshevik wing of the party. For a significant part of his life, he was exiled from Russia and later the Soviet Union. In 1932, he returned to Russia on Joseph Stalin’s personal invitation and died in June 1936.

This volume includes 61 classic novels and stories:

MAXIME GORKY, by Ivan Strannik

INTRODUCTION, by G.K. Chesterton

CREATURES THAT ONCE WERE MEN

TWENTY-SIX MEN AND A GIRL

CHELKASH

MY FELLOW-TRAVELLER

ON A RAFT

TWENTY-SIX AND ONE

TCHELKACHE

MALVA

THROUGH RUSSIA

THE BIRTH OF A MAN

THE ICEBREAKER

GUBIN

NILUSHKA

THE CEMETERY

ON A RIVER STEAMER

A WOMAN

IN A MOUNTAIN DEFILE

KALININ

THE DEAD MAN

RUSSIA AND THE JEWS

ANTON CHEKHOV: FRAGMENTS OF RECOLLECTIONS

THE MAN WHO WAS AFRAID

MOTHER (Part I)

MOTHER (Part II)

ONE AUTUMN NIGHT

HER LOVER

THE SPY, by Maxim Gorky

THE OUTCASTS

THE AFFAIR OF THE CLASPS

THE CONFESSION

ORLÓFF AND HIS WIFE

KONOVÁLOFF

THE KHAN AND HIS SON

THE EXORCISM

MEN WITH PASTS

THE INSOLENT MAN

VÁRENKA ÓLESOFF

COMRADES

MAN AND THE SIMPLON

AN UNWRITTEN SONATA

SUN AND SEA

LOVE OF LOVERS

HEARTS AND CREEDS

THE TRAITOR’S MOTHER

THE FREAK

THE MIGHT OF MOTHERHOOD

A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA

THE HONOUR OF THE VILLAGE

THE SOCIALIST

THE HUNCHBACK

ON THE STEAMER

THE PROFESSOR

THE POET

THE WRITER

THE MAN WITH A NATIONAL FACE

THE LIBERAL

THE JEWS AND THEIR FRIENDS

HARD TO PLEASE

PASSIVE RESISTANCE

MAKING A SUPERMAN

IN THE WORLD