The present volume has been conceived first of all as a sketch towards a new biography. It contains 177 letters, written between 1889 and Gorky's death in 1936, and selected so as to allow Gorky to tell the story of his own life and reveal his hopes and fears, his observations and preoccupations over a literary career which spanned almost fifty years.

Gorky's letters are of considerable interest on a number of levels: biographically; as representations of the development of Russian literature; in terms of the light they shed on many writers of the period (such as Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Pasternak) as well as major political figures (including Lenin and Stalin), and as period documents in their own right.

Remarkable for its sheer immensity and the variety of its addressees, Gorky's correspondence provides a unique personal commentary on all aspects of Russian culture and society in the era of revolution, by one of the most fascinating figures of an extraordinary generation.