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Preface to Andreyev's 'The Abyss and Other Stories' At 20 years of age Andréyev entered St. Petersburg University to study Law. During this time he lived restlessly, and was prone to extreme bouts of mental depression. The young man was, in common with a great number of the youth of Russia, afflicted with melancholia, the result of which was that he made three attempts on his own life. Happily for himself, and the public, these attempts proved futile - possibly because they were only half-hearted. In 1894, he transferred to the University of Moscow where he continued with his legal studies in circumstances of great privation. He graduated from this University in 1897 and at first became a barrister, however, he soon felt the need to write instead and began earning his living as a law and crime reporter to start with. Before long Leonid Andréyev turned all his attention to writing and publishing fictional works which were the products of his own imagination, however, as was the case with so many other great authors, his first literary efforts were laughed at, and he failed to find a publisher for them. Nonetheless, aided and encouraged by Maxim Gorky, with whom he maintained a correspondence for over twelve years and who became a close friend, he managed to see his first works printed in newspapers and periodicals. All that happened afterwards was an inevitable result of his over-abundance of talent. In fact, with the publication of works like "Zhili-byli" (Once There Lived) he attracted great attention and was at first regarded as Gorky's successor as a Realist. Andréyev published his first collection of short stories in 1901. The following year he was to publish several works in this form which definitively established his name : "Mysl" (Thought), dealing with Insanity and Murder, "Bezdna" ("The Abyss"), which is the title story of the present collection, and "V tumanye" ("In the Fog"), about the awakening of sexuality in a young boy. "Living Time ®" is a Registered Trademark and "Living Time ™" is here asserted as a Global Trademark protected by International Intellectual Property Law and by UK Trademark Legislation. |
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