Plays 1: The Lower Depths Summerfolk Children of the Sun Barbarians Enemies

Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) was hailed by Anton Chekhov as the voice of his time. These five plays offer a panoramic view of pre-revolutionary Russian life and are here given accurate playable translations by Jeremy Brooks and Kitty Hunter-Blair.

The Lower Depths: "It is a raw and indignant play, intermittently preachifying, bursting with talent, full of that combination of brutality and sentimentality which characterizes so much of Gorky's work."—Sunday Times

Summerfolk: "That volatility of mood that is the keynote of Russian drama ... the emotional fullness demanded by this rich, yeasty, madly neglected play."—Guardian

Children of the Sun: "These half-seeing, self-absorbed, troubled people are sharing a picnic on top of an anthill that runs ten miles deep and cannot explore anywhere but up ... 1917 must come."—New Statesman

Barbarians: "The effect is of richness, abundance, and unpredictability. The tone veers from the comic to the painful, the absurd to the ugly."—The Times

Enemies: "Gorky's play is a real discovery, the missing link between Chekhov and the Russian Revolution."—Observer