The Darkness and Other Stories

A collection of some of Andreev's most compelling short stories. The title story, "The Darkness" (1907), brings together an idealistic, torn between fanaticism and selfless love, a brothel and an assassination attempt.

"The Ghosts" and "The Governor" explore sanity and madness, betrayal and social hypocrisy. Always in an intense and militant way, Andreev gives us a raw and often disturbing vision of society and human nature. What is it like?

Born in 1871, he initially studied law. A reader of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dostoevsky, he was a writer, playwright, photographer, and anti-Tsarist activist, close to Gorky, with whom he fell out over the publication of "The Darkness".

A rebellious genius, recognized as one of the greatest of Russian literature, he died in Finland, exiled, a prisoner of alcohol, alone and in poverty, at the age of 48. 

Among his most notable works are "The Seven Hanged Men" and "The Red Laughter".