Maxim Gorky grew up on the street — literally. After his parents died he lived with his grandfather, then fended for himself: dockhand, baker, flophouse lodger. The Lower Depths was written from experience, not observation.
He was born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1868; his real surname was Peshkov. The pen name Gorky — "bitter" — came from the bitter life he had led. He turned to literature at twenty-five. "The Old Woman Izergil," "Chelkash," "Malva" — romantic tales of tramps. Success came at once.
The Lower Depths (1902) is a play about a flophouse where people have nothing left to lose. Luka is the comforter who lies out of love; Satin, the cynic who tells the truth. "Man — the word has a proud ring."
After the revolution, a fraught relationship with Stalin. He returned from Italy in 1931. He died in 1936 — in circumstances never explained.