This early work by Caroline Spurgeon was originally published in 1917 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Poetry in the Light of War' is a work of literary criticism on poetry written during wartime. Caroline Spurgeon was born on 24 October 1869, in India. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, England and at King's College, London and also University College London. Spurgeon went on to become an esteemed literary critic, and was actually the first female professor of English literature. From 1900 onwards she lectured on the subject and was only the second female professor in England at the time. Through her various professional activities inside her own department, she participated in the academic literary-critical renaissance of the twenties and early thirties. She was an active militant in favour of women's eligibility to academic degrees and also advocated for more opportunities for foreign women to study in British Universities.

In Continuity collects more than twenty years of distinguished essays by Austin Warren and completes his trilogy that began with Rage for Order (1948) and Connections (1970). These last essays of Warren include discussions of the writings and philosophies of Allen Tate, Lewis Carroll, William Law, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Robert Herrick, Walter Pater, and Robert Frost, as well as an autobiographical essay on Warren's own religious influences. Through his essay collections and other literary studies, Warren helped shape generations of scholars; the approach represented here might best be called New England Common Sense New Criticism. With art and grace, this self-termed literary "generalist" reminds us through his lively prose of the continuity of great Western literature through the centuries, focusing in these essays on nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors.

"Mysticism" is one of most celebrated books on the subject. The spirit of the book is romantic, engaged, and theoretical rather than historical or scientific. Underhill has little use for theoretical explanations and the traditional religious experience, formal classifications or analysis. She dismisses William James' pioneering study, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), and his "four marks of the mystic state" (ineffability, noetic quality, transcience, and passivity). Excerpt: "All men, at one time or another, have fallen in love with the veiled Isis whom they call Truth. With most, this has been a passing passion: they have early seen its hopelessness and turned to more practical things. But others remain all their lives the devout lovers of reality: though the manner of their love, the vision which they make to themselves of the beloved object varies enormously. Some see Truth as Dante saw Beatrice: an adorable yet intangible figure, found in this world yet revealing the next."