This volume gathers together some of F. R. Leavis's earliest work with the things he was working on before his death, as well as a representative sample of pieces reflecting the concerns he developed throughout his writing life. This material, from the whole span of a long writing career, shows both the continuity of his pre-occupations and important respects in which his judgements changed. In an introductory essay Professor Singh discusses each piece and relates it to the development of Leavis's ideas. The reader can trace his concern for standards of critical valuation as it evolved through studies of T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, William Empson, George Eliot, Henry James, W. B. Yeats, I. A. Richards and others. Leavis's well-known reflections on Marxism are also included.