In My Apprenticeship, Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) gives an exact account of his own adolescence. After the death of his mother, fourteen-year-old Alexei Peshkov ( Gorky ) sets out to earn his own living. First he is the errand boy in a shoe shop; then, in turn, a draughtsman's apprentice, a dishwasher on a Volga steamboat, and an apprentice in a studio where icons are painted. Repulsed by the ugly mediocrity of middle-class life, by the "senseless, stupid animosity poisoning the life around him," he constantly searches for something better.

My Apprenticeship (1916) is the second book of Gorky's autobiographical trilogy, each book of which represents an independent work.