This volume offers a rich sampling of George Steiner's writing, including essays from his seminal books After Babel, The Death of Tragedy, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, Language and Science, and Antigones. It also includes excerpts from his novel, The Portage of San Cristobel of A.H., and a reprint of "The Cleric of Treason," on the British spy scandal surrounding Sir Anthony Blunt.

"[Steiner] is a remarkably powerful writer, as essays like 'The Hollow Miracle' and 'Postscript'...attest....[Here] he offers passionate, dexterous, erudite arguments."--The Christian Science Monitor "George Steiner is arguably the most influential cultural mediator writing in English today. Through his essays he has exposed readers...to the latest news from the intellectual and literary fronts of Europe, in a style that is at once lucid and eloquent."--World Literature Today "A plenteous feast--various and served up with intelligence and style...An intelligent, deeply felt humanism characterizes Steiner's work; a tradition of intelligence and style lives in this prolific man."--Los Angeles Times "Steiner is a phenomenon. Reading him over the years, and now in portable form, I'm struck with the energy and, at is best, the relentless concentration of his thought."--Edward W. Said, The Nation "No one now writing on literature can match [Steiner] as polymath and polyglot, and few can equal the verve and eloquence of his writing....[He] has commented with fine perceptiveness on a dizzying range of literary texts and cultural issues."--Robert Alter, The Washington Post Book World "Steiner's style is by turns richly allusive, metaphoric, intensely concerned, prophetic, apocalyptic--and almost always captivating."--The National Review "[Steiner is] in a class above most critics."--The Hudson Review

George Steiner is Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and honorary doctorates.