Aylmer and Louise Maude

A few of the vicar's earlier sermons were published with stirring titles like Nineveh: A Warning to England!, but later he moved from Evangelical Anglicanism towards the Anglo-Catholic Church Union.

Despite this position he "rejected the business ethos" of his British compatriots, took a thoughtful interest in Russian society, and has been described as the only "important intermediary between the two cultures" at that time.

Two of Louise's sisters were artists: Mary[5] knew Tolstoy and prepared illustrations for Where Love is, God is, and Emily was a painter and the first woman to become a full member of the Peredvizhniki.

[7] Maude was a frequent visitor, an admirer and friend, playing tennis and chess, enjoying long discussions, but not always agreeing with the great writer 30 years his senior.

Many of the British business people in late 19th century Russia prospered and were able to plan for early retirement; Aylmer Maude gave up his trading career before he reached 40.

Their next home was in Essex at Wickham's Farm in Bicknacre, associated with the adjacent Brotherhood Church commune at Cock Clarks, Purleigh which they helped establish and to which they gave financial support[9] until it came to an end in 1899.

[10] In 1898 Maude sailed from Liverpool to Quebec with representatives of the Doukhobors, a group supported by Tolstoy, who were persecuted in Russia for their beliefs and wanted to resettle in Canada.

His lecturing talents included a "pleasing smile, manly and unruffled demeanour" and a "beautiful voice" according to the writer William Loftus Hare, who also described him as a "lucid, confident, instructive, persuasive" speaker.

[12] Some years after leaving Wickham's Farm, Maude would express doubts about communal living, feeling it could only succeed with a strong leader or shared traditions, and he called the Purleigh commune a "queer colony".

"[14] While Aylmer Maude did not stick rigidly to a Tolstoyan set of ideas, and was associated with a variety of causes and campaigns, he never wavered in his admiration of Tolstoy, even when he held different views:[15] ".

[17] Maude traveled to Archangel (now Arkhangelsk) in Russia with the British North Russian Expeditionary Force[15] in 1918, acting as interpreter and liaison officer, and lecturing while there for the Universities' Committee of the YMCA to both Russian- and English-speakers, to both civilian and military audiences.

Aylmer Maude handled most of the practical affairs related to publication, corresponding often with George Herbert Perris[21] and Charles F. Cazenove at the Literary Agency in London to discuss publishers, funding and other business.

Shaw wrote to The Times asking readers to support the project by "spontaneously giving it the privileges of a copyright edition" and "subscribing for complete sets" to make up for the "miscarriage of Tolstoy's public-spirited intentions."

He went on to compare Maude's "devoted relation" to Tolstoy with that of Henrik Ibsen's translator William Archer, or Richard Wagner's Ashton Ellis.