Frank Kermode has often said that much of his best work has been done at shorter length, in the essays he has written on a very wide range of subjects for literary journals of one kind or another. This volume brings together a selection of these pieces that have been written since the 1990s, on topics as diverse as Donne, Yeats, Howard Hodgkin, gnosticism, the sea and money, as well as futher thoughts on Shakespeare.