Description: Born "Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov" on March 16, 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia - later renamed in his honor - Maxim Gorky (pseudonym which means "the bitter one") would learn early the harsh lessons of life. He spent his early childhood in Astrakhan where his father worked as a shipping agent, but when the boy was only five years old, his father died, and he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents. This was not a happy time for the young Gorky as conditions were poor and often violent. At the age of eight, the boy's grandfather forced him to quit school and apprenticed him to several tradesmen including a shoemaker and an icon painter. Fortunately, Gorky also worked as a dishwasher on a Volga steamer where a friendly cook taught him to read, and literature soon became his passion.Gorky wrote a series of plays and novels, all less excellent than his best earlier stories. Foma Gordeyev (Fom Gordyeff originally published in 1899) his first novel illustrates his admiration for strength of body and will in the masterful barge owner and rising capitalist Ignat Gordeyev, who is contrasted with his relatively feeble and intellectual son Foma, a "seeker after the meaning of life," as are many of Gorky's other characters. From this point, the rise of Russian capitalism became one of Gorky's main fictional interests.

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