Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, 1868-1936)
'This wondrous and epically rich, epically diverse country', 1929
Autograph letter signed ('A. Peshkov', and with initials 'A.P.') to [Vladimir Pimenovich] Krymov, [Moscow], 27 July [but postmarked June] 1929.

In Russian. 1½ pages, 360 x 227mm, on squared paper. Envelope.

'This wondrous and epically rich, epically diverse country': Gorky's enchantment on his return to the USSR. Gorky apologises (as in his letter of 8 May in the preceding lot) for forgetting Krymov's first name and patronymic. He has read Krymov's manuscript (for his book Lyudi v pautine) and sent it to the Federation publishing house: 'It is a young publishing house, cultured and operating with great success. I told them that if your work is accepted I will write a preface'. He goes on to give Krymov a detailed opinion on the work: 'interesting, lively, written in an original style; it is heavier than Bogomoly v korobochke [Krymov's 1921 work], heavier because overloaded with subjective and autobiographical material ... in this book you are too involved in talking about your own tastes, sensations, prejudices and even dreams. All this is uninteresting for the modern reader, enamoured by plot, facts, colours'; Federation will no doubt require cuts before publishing the book. As for his own activities, Gorky has recently returned from Solovok and Murmansk: 'Soon I will travel along the Volga to Krasnovodsk and then to Tashkent. The distances are huge. But one finds oneself in this wondrous and epically rich, epically diverse country, when one sees its fast-paced life, the indomitable ebullience of its young energy: distances cease to intimidate. One wants to walk, travel, run, just to see more!'. The letter ends on a note of encouragement in a postscript: 'Your descriptions of India and China are very powerful'.

The best-known work of the novelist Vladimir Pimenovich Krymov (1878-1968) is his autobiographical trilogy Za millionami (1933).

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