Q. D. Leavis was one of the finest critics of the novel. Her published essays appeared as articles and reviews of remarkable trenchancy in Scrutiny (of which she was effectively co-editor with her husband F. R. Leavis), or as lectures or introductions to editions of classics novels. They are here collected and reprinted in three volumes. Volume 1 on the English novel appeared in 1983. Volume 2 collects her lecture 'The American Novel'; essays and lectures on Henry James, Hawthorne, Melville, and Edith Wharton; and the lectures 'The French Novel', 'The Russian Novel', and 'The Italian Novel'. There is an introduction by the editor, Professor G. Singh. All the essays are informed by that broad 'sociological' view of literature that caused Q. D. Leavis to ask how the novel rose and why it flourished. The third and final volume includes material on women writers of the nineteenth century.