William Heinemann, London, 1954, 1st.  Hard cover, 306 pages.  Green cloth with gilt title on red label on spine, author and publisher in gilt.  Some edge and cover wear, bleach spots on boards; corners bumped with a bit of wear, spine ends bumped and worn with tiny tears to cloth; binding sound.  Some markings in the text, neatly done.  Brief biographies and critiques of authors and their classic novels:  Henry Fielding and Tom Jones; Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice; Stendhal and Le Rouge et le Noir; Balzac and Le Pere Goriot; Charles Dickens and David Copperfield; Flaubert and Madame Bovary; Herman Melville and Moby Dick; Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights; Dostoevsky and The Brothers Karamazov, and Tolstoy and War and Peace.  ‘The essays which are contained in this volume were written in the first place to induce readers to read the novels with which they are concerned … I have not hesitated to point out the defects as well as the merits that I see in these various novels …’ (from p. 19)