This series gathers together a body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and little-published documentary material such as letters and diaries. Pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects.

This book examines Edmund Spenser's essays. It presents the criticisms of John Dryden, which are determined by his own preoccupations than by his reading of other critics, and contains three larger sections (covering the periods 1579-1600, 1600-1660, 1660-1715) into which all this material falls.