Essential if teading (or writing) is your essence of life; a book for exploration and discovery, an excited book' and one which stimulates argument and controversy, as well as agreement.

Mr. Seymour-Smith's commentary exemplifies at almost every point an active engagement with the works he is discussing... (His) book embodies both the myths of literature and a sense of what it is like to encounterthe thing itself. That is the merit-indeed, the distinction-of his ecellent book.'

I have read it from cover to cover, and feel an infinitely better informed man.

The energy of writing hardly flags, author after author is characterised in terms which a student may easily grasp, but which also satisfy readers wanting something more than teachers usually say... this book will become a critical classic.

The word "indispebsable" is the only one that will do, and if only because there is surely no other book which deals so thoughly with so many diferent national literatures.