- Critical essays reflecting a variety of schools of criticism- Notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index- An introductory essay by Harold Bloom.

"A collection of ten critical essays on the Prologue to Chaucer's well-known work, arranged in chronological order of their original publication." --

What PC English professors don't want you to know...in Beowulf - If we don't admire heroes, there's something wrong with us , in Chaucer: Chivalry has contributed enormously to women's happiness, in Shakespeare: Some choices are inherently destructive (it's just built into the nature of things) , in Milton: Our intellectual freedoms are Christian, not anti-Christian, in origin , in Jane Austen: Most men would be improved if they were more patriarchal...

This 1902 collection of papers is described by its author as having unique subjects, away from "the glitter and bustle of the more-frequented promenades of letters." Included are "Dr. Johnson's Haunts and Habitations," "Titled Authors of the Eighteenth Century," "A Walk from Fulham to Chiswick," and "'Vader Cats,'" among others.

"Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel, White Teeth, almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also as a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right. Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the...

Less than a year before his death in 1972, John Berryman signed a contract with his publisher for a book of prose, The Freedom of the Poet, for which he had made a selection from his published and unpublished writings. In his draft of a prefatory note, he acknowledged the influence of Eliot, Blackmur, Pound, and Empson on his critical thought, pointing out that "my interest in critical theory has been slight," and concluding: "But I have also borne...