In the book born from his Oxford Ford Lectures, Stefan Collini challenges the historical assumptions at work in twentieth-century English literary criticism, showing how the work of critics was bound up with claims about the nature and direction of historical change, the interpretation of the nation...

In the book born from his Oxford Ford Lectures, Stefan Collini challenges the historical assumptions at work in twentieth-century English literary criticism, showing how the work of critics was bound up with claims about the nature and direction of historical change, the interpretation of the national past, and the work of earlier scholars.