Henry James

The critic in his conception was not the narrow lawgiver or the rigid censor that he is often assumed to be; he was the student the inquirer the interpreter the taker of notes the active restless commentator...'' James''s words on Sainte-Beuve could very easily be applied to himself. The pleasures of his own criticism - wit and urbanity metaphorical artistry his way of stalking and teasing out his subject - always lift his essays from the merely instructive to the delightful this volume the most comprehensive selection yet published Roger Gard provides us with an excellent Introduction and includes generous selections from James'' writings on individual authors (Flaubert Turgenev Hawthorne Balzac and George Eliot among others) as well as from his Prefaces and from the general essays which have been so enormously influential in shaping twentieth-century views of literature.