Twenty-six Men and a Girl (Russian: Двадцать шесть и одна, romanized: Dvadtsat shest i odna) is a 1899 short story by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky and one of his most famous works.
Twenty-six Men and a Girl has been praised by critics for sympathetic tone and rhythmic prose, particularly evident in the emotional folk songs of the bakers.
[2] The only one of Gorky's early stories which makes one forget all his shortcomings (except the mediocrity of his style) is that which may be considered as closing the period, "Twenty-six Men and a Girl" (1899)...
But it is traversed by such a powerful current of poetry, by such a convincing faith in beauty and freedom and in the essential nobility of man, and at the same time it is told with such precision and necessity, that it can hardly be refused the name of a masterpiece.
But "Twenty-six Men and a Girl" is alone in its supreme beauty - and it is the last of Gorky's early good work: for fourteen years he was to be a wanderer in tedious and fruitless mazes.