Book excerpt: In this magisterial volume, first published in 1932, Eliot gathered his choice of the miscellaneous reviews and literary essays he had written since 1917 when he became assistant editor of The Egoist. In his preface to the third edition in 1951 he wrote; 'For myself this book is a kind of historical record of my interests and opinions.' The text includes some of his most important criticism, especially parts of The Sacred Wood, Homage to John Dryden, the essays on Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, For Lancelot Andrewes and Essays Ancient and Modern.