A collection of learned essays and critical sketches surveys Anglo-American literary history and practice, offering biographical portraiture, close readings, and historical perspective on poets and dramatists. Topics range from early New England writers and a group of collegiate literati to reflections on Emerson’s journals, the art of letter writing, commemorations of Milton and Thackeray, and studies of Sheridan, the Cavaliers, and Shakespeare’s contemporaries. The essays blend anecdote, textual analysis, and commentary on literary form, influence, and the habits of authorship.