Maxim Gorki was born Alexei Maximovich Peshkov in Nizhy Novgorod, Russia, on March 16,1868. His father died when Maxim was five years old, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents. His childhood was a brutal one; he was abused by his grandfather and forced to earn his own living from the age of eight. While he was still a child, Gorki became a menial laborer and a tramp, experiences that informed the works for which he is most famous. He was frequently beaten and abused by his employers, and to escape the miserable conditions of his life, he became an avid reader. In this way Gorki was self-educated, and came to see literature as a means of salvation for all people, as he details in his autobiographies and the essay collection, On Literature.

Gorki spent his early adulthood in Kazan, where, at 19, he attempted suicide by...