A fascinating survey of Victorian literature from one of England's greatest minds Dishing out his signature brand of harsh wit, G. K. Chesterton casts a critical eye on the poets and novelists that defined the Victorian age in English literature. "Her imagination was sometimes superhuman - always inhuman," he writes of Emily Brontë. "Wuthering Heights might have been written by an eagle." Ranging from sharp denunciation to genuine admiration, Chesterton...

John Updike's sixth collection of essays and literary criticism opens with a skeptical overview of literary biographies, proceeds to five essays on topics ranging from China and small change to faith and late works, and takes up, under the heading "General Considerations," books, poker, cars, and the American libido. The last, informal section of Due Considerations assembles more or less autobiographical pieces--reminiscences, friendly forewords,...