Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was a Russian novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist, who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. Praised for his unique writing style and innovative experiments in form, and held in high esteem by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky among others, Leskov is credited with creating a comprehensive picture of contemporary Russian society using mostly short literary forms. His major works include Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865), The Cathedral Folk (1872), The Enchanted Wanderer (1873), and "The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea" (1881).
Portrait of Leskov by Valentin Serov, 1894
The owners of the business I found myself in were all English, had no experience of Russian life whatsoever, and were squandering the capital they'd brought with them in the most optimistic manner. Nikolai Leskov on Scott & Wilkins.
Engraving of Leskov
Leskov c1880s
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, popularly known as Maxim Gorky, was a Russian and Soviet writer and socialism proponent. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an author, he travelled widely across the Russian Empire changing jobs frequently, experiences which would later influence his writing.
Gorky in 1900
"Ex Libris Maxim Gorki" bookplate from his personal library depicts the unchained Prometheus rising from the pages of a book, crushing a multi-tailed whip and shooing away black crows. Saint Basil's Cathedral is portrayed in the background
Anton Chekhov and Gorky. 1900, Yalta
Leo Tolstoy with Gorky in Yasnaya Polyana, 1900