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In this series of penetrating and attractively readable essays, Stefan Collini explores aspects of the literary and intellectual culture of Britain from the early twentieth century to the present. Collini focuses on critics and historians who wrote for a non-specialist readership, and on the periodicals and other genres through which they attempted to reach that readership.

Among the critics discussed are Cyril Connolly, V.S. Pritchett, Aldous Huxley, Rebecca West, Edmund Wilson, and George Orwell, while the historians include A.L. Rowse, Arthur Bryant, E.H. Carr, and E.P. Thompson. There are also essays on wider themes such as the fate of 'general' periodicals, the history of reading, the role of criticism, changing conceptions of 'culture', the limitations of biography, and the functions of universities. Explicitly addressed to 'the non-specialist reader', these essays make some of the fruits of detailed scholarly research in various fields available to a wider audience in a succinct and elegant manner.

Stefan Collini has been acclaimed as one of the most brilliant essayists of our time, and this collection shows him at his subtle, perceptive, and trenchant best. The book will appeal to (and delight) readers interested in literature, history, and contemporary cultural debate.

Stefan Collini is Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare Hall. A frequent contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, The London Review of Books, and other periodicals both in Britain and the USA, his previous books include Public Moralists (1991), Matthew Arnold: a Critical Portrait (1994, reissued 2007), English Pasts (1999), and Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (2006), all also published by Oxford University Press. He is a Fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society.

Part One: Writing Lives
1. On not getting on with it: the criticism of Cyril Connolly
2. Rolling it out: V. S. Pritchett's writing life
3. The Great Seer: Aldous Huxley's visions
4. Performance: the critical authority of Rebecca West
5. Man of letters as hero: the energy of Edmund Wilson
6. Plain speaking: the lives of George Orwell
7. Believing in oneself: the career of Stephen Spender
8. Smacking: the letters of William Empson
9. Disappointment: A. L. Rowse in his diaries
10. Believing in England: Arthur Bryant, historian as man of letters
11. Believing in history: Herbert Butterfield, Christian and Whig
12. The intellectual as realist: the puzzling career of E. H. Carr
13. Enduring passion: E. H. Thompson's reputation
14. Olympian universalism: Perry Anderson as essayist
15. Hegel in green wellies: Roger Scruton's England
Part Two: Reading Matters
16. 'The Great Age': the idealizing of Victorian culture
17. Always dying: the idea of the general periodical
18. Boomster and the Quack: the author as celebrity
19. Private reading: the autodidact public
20. The completest mode: the literary critic as hero
21. From deference to diversity: 'culture' in Britain 1945-2000
22. Well connected: biography and intellectual elites
23. National lives: The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
24. HiEdBiz: universities and their publics
References
Acknowledgements
Index
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