John Carey analyses the elitist view of some of the most highly respected literary icons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This book, as described in his preface, is about the response of the English literary intelligensia to the new phenomenon of mass culture. This devastating attack on the intellectuals exposes the loathing which the mass of humanity ignited in many of the virtual founders of modern culture: Ezra Pound, James Joyce, E M Forster, Virginia Woolf, T S Eliot and others. Professor Carey compares their detestation of common humanity to Nietzche, whose philosophy helped to create the atmosphere leading to the rise of Adolph Hitler.