Maxim Gorky

This antiquarian book contains Gorky Maxim's 1906 novel, "The Mother". It is a moving and thought-provoking narrative of the parallel between the evolution of one man's mother and the evolution of Mother Russia. Mother is uneducated and has been beaten in her life, and has a loving son who wants to protect her. The son is a revolutionary. As the mother starts to read and educate herself, she becomes close to the revolutionaries who frequent her house, and eventually risks it all to make Russia a better society. Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (1868 - 1936) was a Russian writer and political activist who founded the Socialist Realism literary method. This seminal book has since been translated into many languages and adapted for the screen numerous times. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern edition, complete with a new prefatory biography of the author.

Set amongst the whores, alcoholics, cynics and doss house dreamers of a Russia on the brink of revolution, The Lower Depths is a harrowing, violent and uncompromising portrayal of the human spirit at its lowest ebb, with destitution and death an ever present spectre.

Superb new translations of Gorky’s classic memoirs of Tolstoy and other remarkable Russians, along with unforgettable characterizations of Gorky himself by his contemporaries Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) enjoyed worldwide fame of a kind unmatched by that of any other writer in the first half of the twentieth century. Prodigiously gifted and prolific, riddled with contradictions, praised increasingly for political rather than literary reasons, he left a vast body of writing that contains acknowledged masterpieces alongside many currently neglected works that still await impartial assessment. Taken together, the pieces in this book (many of them based on fuller texts than those of previously published translations) present a surprising and unfamiliar Gorky—a figure who, once the clichés are stripped away from him, becomes ever more fascinating and enigmatic as man, as writer, and as historical figure. Among the volume’s selections are portraits of Gorky by four particularly astute observers: poet Vladislav Khodasevich, critics Boris Eikhenbaum and Georgy Adamovich, and novelist Evgeny Zamiatin. Fanger’s generous annotations and brilliant introduction will make this book indispensable to every reader with an interest in Tolstoy, Gorky, modern Russian literature and politics, or the art of the memoir.