Critical essays are the basic mode of expression that students of literature at universities and colleges are expected to master, yet they are given no special instruction in this discipline. To make good the deficiency, Philip Hobsbaum demonstrates that there are techniques in writing criticism which can be both taught and learned. He himself learned his craft from such major figures as F.R. Leavis and William Empson, and has had many years' experience as a professional critic and a teacher of literature. After defining the uses of criticism, he provides invaluable guidance on such topics as what to say about a poem, English prose style and structuring an essay, in each case taking examples from the works of well-known authors. Here at last is the means of bridging the gap between the student as reader and the student as writer. Philip Hobsbaum is Titular Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow. He has published four collections of poems and six books of literary criticism, including A Reader's Guide to Charles Dickens, A Reader's Guide to D.H. Lawrence and A Reader's Guide to Robert Lowell, all from Thames and Hudson.