[1] The orphan boy Yevsey Klimkov is apprenticed to the owner of a shop, who secretly sells prohibited revolutionary books and then informs on his customers to the police.

The role of the agent provocateur is commended to Klimkov, and he takes it: he encourages some revolutionaries to produce illegal pamphlets, supplies them with the printing facilities, and then has them arrested.

[4] On February 24, 1910, a report to the Russian Central Committee of Foreign Censorship characterized the book with "The author sets out to contrast the nastiness of the [government] spies and provocateurs on the one hand with the nobility of the revolutionaries on the other... and since the author frequently mentions the Tsar and the revolutionaries' intentions regarding his person, and makes it clear that every bad thing that is done in Russia is done for the glory of the Tsar and at his command...

[4] Cuttings – the two thirds of the book that depict the activities of the organs of the tsarist secret police – was published in Russia in 1917, Life and Knowledge noting "The court having upheld the censorship, we managed to save only the first six and a half chapters from destruction.

[4] The Life of a Useless Man was translated into English by Moura Budberg, Gorky's secretary and common law wife.