Includes index.

Here are Penelope Fitzgerald's brilliant introductions to some classics, as well as considerations of recent novels, and reviews of several late-twentieth-century literary biographies--reviews that together form a memorable criticism of both life and the art of life-writing. Here especially are extended explorations of 'minor' figures, the creators of modest, overlooked, but fully achieved imaginative works, the celebration of which reveals so much about Penelope Fitzgerald's own artistic sensibility. Among these are lyric poet Charlotte Mew, consummate craftsman William Morris, and the cartoonists and humorists of "Punch," the comic weekly of which her father, 'Evoe' Knox, was for many years the editor. Fitzgerald confesses she admires wit, values personal and artistic courage, and feels drawn "to whatever is spare, subtle, and economical." Rounded out by travel writings, bits of autobiography, and essays on the craft of fiction, this book is one of the most engaging books about books since Virginia Woolf's "The Common Reader." -- Front dustcover.

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