This Book, is a collection of short stories about Russia. Book contains many collections of short stories by the popular and influential Russian author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and arguably the greatest Russian literary figure of the 20th century. Maxim Gorky also wrote about stories, plays, memoirs and novels which touched the imagination of the Russian people, and was the first Russian author to write sympathetically of such characters as tramps and thieves, emphasizing their daily struggles against overwhelming odds..