A small provincial Russian town is suddenly aroused from its lethargy by the imminent arrival of the first railroad. Gorky is less concerned here with the Industrial Revolution than with the damaging personal effect of people who represent progress; in this case, two engineers who come to prepare for the railroad and who sweep into the lives of all and sundry with the force of a gale, upsetting stalemated romances, stale marriages, and the equilibrium of the petty bureaucracy.

"The stories come from all over the world and represent many genres, such as parables, animal fables, historical fiction, fairy tales, and Christian fantasy. Definitely read these stories at Easter, but keep the book close and pull it out whenever you and your family need a reminder of the great Easter themes of transformation, reconciliation and the triumph of life over death."—National Catholic Register Everyone who believes Easter is about more than bunnies and eggs will be grateful for this new collection of short stories that shed light on the deeper meaning of the season. Selected for their spiritual value and literary quality, these classic tales capture the spirit of Easter in a way that will captivate readers of all ages. Parents and grandparents will find that children love to hear these stories read aloud, year after year. Easter Stories includes time-honored favorites from world-famous storytellers such as C.S. Lewis, Leo Tolstoy, Selma Lagerlof, Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Goudge, Maxim Gorky, Ruth Sawyer, and Walter Wangerin – as well as many you’ve never heard before. Illustrated with original woodcuts.

Superb new translations of Gorky's classic memoirs of Tolstoy and other remarkable Russians, along with unforgettable characterizations of Gorky himself by his contemporaries Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) enjoyed worldwide fame of a kind unmatched by that of any other writer in the first half of the twentieth century. Prodigiously gifted and prolific, riddled with contradictions, praised increasingly for political rather than literary reasons, he left a vast body of writing that contains acknowledged masterpieces alongside many currently neglected works that still await impartial assessment. Taken together, the pieces in this book (many of them based on fuller texts than those of previously published translations) present a surprising and unfamiliar Gorky-a figure who, once the cliches are stripped away from him, becomes ever more fascinating and enigmatic as man, as writer, and as historical figure. Among the volume's selections are portraits of Gorky by four particularly astute observers: poet Vladislav Khodasevich, critics Boris Eikhenbaum and Georgy Adamovich, and novelist Evgeny Zamiatin. Fanger's generous annotations and brilliant introduction will make this book indispensable to every reader with an interest in Tolstoy, Gorky, modern Russian literature and politics, or the art of the memoir.