Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, Maksim Gorky, (1868 - 1936), was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the Socialist realism literary method and a political activist. But with the publication of "Chelkash" (1895) in a leading St. Petersburg journal, he began a success story as spectacular as any in the history of Russian literature. So great was the success of his literary works that Gorky's reputation quickly soared, and he began to be spoken of almost as an equal of Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov. In this book: Twenty-six and One and Other Stories Mother The Man Who Was Afraid Through Russia Creatures That Once Were Men