"Gorky Stories," in Collected Impressions, Alfred A. Knopf, 1950, pp. 153-56.

In the following review, originally published in 1939, Bowen presents a balanced assessment of style, technique, and theme in Gorky's collected short fiction.

Short story writers form a sort of democracy: when a man engages himself in this special field his stories stand to be judged first of all on their merits as stories, only later in their relation to the rest of his work. The more imposing the signature, the more this applies. The craft (it may be no more) of the short story has special criteria; its limitations are narrow and definite. It is in the building-up of the short story that the craftsman side of the artist has to appear. Very close demands on the writer's judgment are made; the short story is not a mere ease for the passing fancy; it offers no place for...