Jorge Luis Borges's famous 1941 meditation on language, alphabets, and the library that contains all knowledge is an allegory of our Universe, and in this edition is complemented and enhanced by the etching of the French artist, Érik Desmazières.

    The second edition had a substantial new chapter by R. C. Churchill on twentieth-century literature and appeared in 1961. This is a digital reprint of the 1970 edition, prepared by Mr Churchill, which provides a revision of the first thirteen chapters. Three very substantial chapters were added that had the effect of making this the only complete and up-to-date survey as of 1970 of world literature in English. The literature of the USA is surveyed in extenso and in its own right. The literatures in English of Ireland, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, South Africa and the predominately English-speaking African states are also treated. Students and general readers will find this a comprehensive and lively-minded survey, guide and reference book to the world's literature in the English language.

    This welcome re-issue—one of several for this title—testifies to the value publishers put on it and to a reluctance among them ever to let it stay out of print for very long.The subjects Wilson treats—Dickens and Kipling, Edith Wharton and Ernest Hemingway, Joyce and Sophocles, and perhaps most surprising, Jacques Casanova—reveal the range and dexterity of his interests, his historical grasp, his learning, and his intellectual curiosity.Wilson’s essays did not give rise to a new body of literary theory nor to a new school of literary criticism. Rather, he animated or reanimated the reputations of the artists he treated and furthered the quest for the sources of their literary artistry and craftsmanship.F. Scott Fitzgerald called Wilson “the literary conscience of my generation.” Today’s readers of The Wound and the Bow may want to make the claim for their generation as well.