This collection of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism, most of it not previously published, has been made as a “gathering in memory of William Van O’Connor,” distinguished American scholar, writer, critic, and frequent contributor to this series, who died in 1966. Like O’Connor, the contributors are all men of letters associated with American or European universities, and all are noted for their own extensive writings, both creative and critical. Like O’Connor, too, they have been influenced by the major tenets of the New Criticism.

Important and eloquent judgments of literature and its creators are made by Murray Krieger, Earl Miner, Malcolm Bradbury, Albert Gérard, Robert B. Heilman, Howard Baker, Richard Foster, Lewis Leary, and Walter Sutton. Poems are contributed by such distinguished names as Philip Larkin, Vivian de Sola Pinto, Leonard Unger, Robert Penn Warren, and James Wright. Karl Shapiro has contributed a work of fiction “Cock­fight in Milo,” a chapter from his unfinished novel.