Vladimir Korolenko is remembered not only as a writer but also as a publicist and a humanitarian. He fought to defend the rights of the defenseless, and he came to be regarded as the conscience of the nation. During his lifetime he was highly respected as an original writer and characterized by his peers and the reading public as an unusual person of moral superiority who lived during a chaotic period in Russian history. In his writings he conveyed the struggles of ordinary people, who were distinguished by his portrayal of their convictions and steadfastness. Written between 1879 and 1919, Korolenko's fiction encompasses fifty-three short stories, the bulk of which date from the 1880s and 1890s. In the mid 1890s his focus shifted to editing a leading literary journal, Russkoe bogatstvo (Russian Wealth), and to writing his autobiography, begun in 1905, on which he worked until the end of his life...