GORKI (Maxime). Signed letter about his work En Prison. Capr - Lot 36

GORKI (Maxime). Signed letter about his work En Prison. Capri, October 23, [1907]. L.S. to "Gino Righini" Capri, October 23 [1907]. 2 pp. in-8 (14 x 21 cm). Retained envelope, stamps and seals. He apologizes for not having been able to reply earlier. He announces "Regarding 'La Prison'(1) , which you wish to publish, I ask you to contact Mr. Ivan Ladyschniroff [...] for he is my representative in Europe - I myself would not know whether the rights to this story are not reserved (sic) for someone here in Italy. [I promise to send you [...] a small article, as yet unpublished, for your journal [...]". (1). En Prison, collection of short stories published in 1905. Maxim Gorky was imprisoned several times (in 1901 and 1905). Maxim Gorky, pen name of Alexis Pechkov, was a Russian writer. He was born on March 16, 1868 (March 28 in the Gregorian calendar) in Nizhny Novgorod and died on June 18, 1936 in Moscow. Considered one of the founders of socialist realism in literature, he was politically and intellectually committed to the Bolshevik revolutionaries. A poor, self-taught child, he became a famous writer right from his literary beginnings. He wrote picturesque short stories about the wretched of deepest Russia, such as Essais et Histoires (1898), denunciatory plays like Les Bas-fonds (1902) and socially committed novels like La Mère, publié (1907). Sharing the ideals of progressive parties, he befriended the Bolsheviks and Lenin. Imprisoned several times for his stance, particularly during the 1905 revolution, he left Russia and traveled to the United States to raise funds for the Bolshevik movement. On his return in 1906, he was exiled to Capri for medical and police reasons. Amnestied in 1913, Maxim Gorky returned to Russia. He was close to Lenin and the Revolutionaries, but from November 1917 onwards he voiced criticisms that earned him threats from the authorities. Worried and ill with tuberculosis, he left Russia in October 1921 and settled again in southern Italy in 1924. He returned to the USSR several times after 1929 and settled there permanently in 1932: he became a prominent member of the Soviet nomenklatura and took part in the regime's propaganda. He died in June 1936 in troubled circumstances.