"How Much Land Does a Man Need?" is a short story by a man who became famous primarily for his novels. Although Leo Tolstoy's reputation as one of the greatest writers in human history rests upon such inimitable works as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, he later disavowed such works as amateurish. In Tolstoy's own mind, short stories such as "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" were some of the best things that he ever wrote.
One reason for this is that Tolstoy's views about art changed rather drastically after he underwent an existential crisis in the 1870s, shortly after publishing his two great novels. Tolstoy's personal crisis led him to turn towards what he felt were the profound...
