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