Excellent, engaging essays by Stevenson about a variety of Scottish, French, American, and Japanese writers / figures (as well as Samuel Pepys--the one Englishman to slip by). The ones about French medieval writers Charles of Orleans and Francois Villon are especially good, as are the ones on Hugo, Whitman, and Pepys. One might not always agree with Stevenson's neglect of the works for the men or, alternatively, his conclusions about these writers, but the essays provide a fascinating glimpse of how Stevenson negotiates literary history. Most of these essays started as periodical articles from the 1870s and 1880s in journals such as the Cornhill, and the entire collection was published in 1882.