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, written in 1908 while Gorky was living in exile in Capri, is reprinted from an English translation of 1916 made by the Jewish Russian-American socialist Rose Strunsky who also provides an introduction.