Hadji Murad and Other Stories. [Hadji Murat].

Hadji Murat is very different than the other works Tolstoy produced around the same time. In The Devil (1889), The Kreutzer Sonata (1890), "Father Sergius" (1898), Resurrection (1899), "Master and Man" (1895), and The Forged Coupon (1905), the emphasis is on man's moral duties which is not the case in Hadji Murat. The theme of struggle while remaining faithful resonated with Tolstoy even though he was in ailing health; later letters suggest this work gave him a brief, final moment of vigor. Just as the author was struggling with his near death, his extended meditation on the concept of the individual refusing to give in to the demands of the world helped him to complete the book, although he himself had no inclination to publish it and was only concerned with its completion. American literature critic Harold Bloom said of Hadji Murat: "[it is] my personal touchstone for the sublime of prose fiction, to me the best story in the world".