Gorky (1868-1936) was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, for a time associating himself with Lenin and the Bolshevik wing of the party, and spent a significant part of his life in exile. In 1932 he returned to the USSR on Stalin's personal invitation. This work, sometimes known as My Apprenticeship, is the second part of his autobiographical trilogy and covers the years 1879-84. It was first published in the original Russian in 1916 and this English translation appeared the following year.