“ There are some vigorous pictures, however, of the trading class in his Foma Gordeyev. But his favourite type is the rebel, the man in revolt against society, and him he describes from personal knowledge, and enlists our sympathies with him. ”

“ GORKI, MAXIM (1868– ) , the pen-name of the Russian novelist Alexei Maximovich Pyeshkov, who was born at Nizhni-Novgorod on the 26th of March 1868. His father was a dyer, but he lost both his parents in childhood, and in his ninth year was sent to assist in a boot-shop. We find him afterwards in a variety of callings, but devouring books of all sorts greedily, whenever they fell into his hands. He ran away from the boot-shop and went to help a land-surveyor. ”

“ Gorki is always preaching that we must have ideals—something better than everyday life, and this view is brought out in his play At the Lowest Depths, which had great success at Moscow, but was coldly received at St Petersburg. ”