📙 Gorky (1868-1936) was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist. He publicly opposed the Tsarist regime, for a time associating himself with Lenin and the Bolshevik wing of the party, and spent a significant part of his life in exile. In 1932 he returned to the USSR on Stalin's personal invitation. This collection includes Waiting for the Ferry and The Affair of the Clasps in addition to the title story and is reprinted from an English translation of 1905.