Q. D. Leavis was one of the finest critics of the novel. Her published essays appeared as articles and reviews of remarkable trenchancy in Scrutiny (of which she was effectively co-editor with her husband F. R. Leavis), or as lectures or introductions to editions of classics novels. They are here collected and reprinted in three volumes. Volume 1 on the English novel appeared in 1983. Volume 2 collects her lecture 'The American Novel'; essays and lectures on Henry James, Hawthorne, Melville, and Edith Wharton; and the lectures 'The French Novel', 'The Russian Novel', and 'The Italian Novel'. There is an introduction by the editor, Professor G. Singh. All the essays are informed by that broad 'sociological' view of literature that caused Q. D. Leavis to ask how the novel rose and why it flourished. The third and final volume includes material on women writers of the nineteenth century.
This third volume of Q. D. Leavis's essays brings together pieces on hitherto unexplored aspects of Victorian literature. Most of these date from towards the end of her life and are previously unpublished. There are also essays and reviews which appeared originally in Scrutiny. Mrs Leavis focuses on the novel of religious controversy, the Anglo-Irish novel, women writers of the nineteenth century, and certain aspects of George Eliot's work. She examines these, and other relevant writing, from literary, historical and sociological points of view. The volume affords valuable new insights into nineteenth-century literature, and affirms Mrs Leavis's standing as a pioneering and penetrating critic.
