Table of Contents

• Preface to the revised edition
• To the Reader
• 1 Society and Self-study: the Problem of Literary Authority
• 2 Literary Anxiety and the Romance of Books
• 3 Rival Readings
• 4 Writing and Embodiment
• 5 Reading and Temperament
• 6 The Paradox of Communication: Reading the Essays Otherwise
• 7 Portrait of the Essayist Without Qualities
• 8 On Public and Private Life
• 9 Civilisation, Literacy and Barbarianism
• 10 On Living and Dying as We Do
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

About the Author

Professor John O'Neill is Distinguished Research Professor of Sociology at York University, Toronto, a Member of the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.