This work brings together Scruton's best essays from many sources, arranging them thematically. The book has four sections: Language and Art, Writers in Context, Architecture, and Culture and Anarchy. Though the essays are diverse, certain themes are developed in particular and then in general ways, and there are several important essays on writers and critics, that contribute to the reappraisal of their work - among them Dante, Andre Breton, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, Jacques Lacan, and Yukio Mishima. Other Roger Scruton books published by St. Augustine's Press: The Aesthetic Understanding: Essays in the Philosophy of Art and Culture, Art and Imagination: A Study in the Philosophy of Mind, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture, The Meaning of Conservatism, On Hunting, Perictione in Colophon, Philosopher on Dover Beach, Xanthippic Dialogues