"The Short Story," in Maxim Gorky the Writer, Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. 59-94.

In the following essay, Borras studies the range of Gorky's short stories from those inspired by folk legends and the lives of vagabonds to his later tales concerned with "the disintegration of human personality."

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During his youthful wanderings Maxim Gorky was an indefatigable collector of folk legends. When he became a writer, convinced of the didactic purpose of literature, he had recourse to his knowledge of folk-lore to assist him in communicating to his readers the moral lessons he wished to teach them. He did not, however, think that the legends were in themselves sources of perfect wisdom. He once told his friend Vasili Desnitsky that he thought it pointless simply to write down what he had heard, in the form in which he had heard it. By this he meant that he so adapted...