Eric Griffiths is Fellow in English at Trinity College, Cambridge and Lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry (Clarendon Press, 1989) and co-editor of Dante in English (Penguin, 2005).Freya Johnston is University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow in English at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is the author of Samuel Johnson and the Art of Sinking, 1709-1791 (Oxford University Press, 2005), general editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels of Thomas Love Peacock (Cambridge University Press, 2016-) and co-editor of Jane Austen's Teenage Writings (Oxford World's Classics, 2017).

Eric Griffiths used to deliver his lectures quickly, but I suggest you read them slowly. The 10 collected here in If Not Critical about some of the writers closest to his heart - Dante, Shakespeare, Racine, Primo Levi, Samuel Beckett - are richly textured, crammed with insight and often very funny. For anyone interested in how literature works, and why it matters, they are vital reading.

• Introduction 1: Lists 2: Timing 3: Timeliness 4: Beasts 5: A rehearsal of Hamlet 6: Kafka's relations 7: French as a literary medium 8: Inferno 32 and 33 9: Primo Levi 10: Godforsakenness 11: Poems and translations

Eric Griffiths is Fellow in English at Trinity College, Cambridge and Lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry (Clarendon Press, 1989) and co-editor of Dante in English (Penguin, 2005).Freya Johnston is University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow in English at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is the author of Samuel Johnson and the Art of Sinking, 1709-1791 (Oxford University Press, 2005), general editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels of Thomas Love Peacock (Cambridge University Press, 2016-) and co-editor of Jane Austen's Teenage Writings (Oxford World's Classics, 2017).

Eric Griffiths used to deliver his lectures quickly, but I suggest you read them slowly. The 10 collected here in If Not Critical about some of the writers closest to his heart - Dante, Shakespeare, Racine, Primo Levi, Samuel Beckett - are richly textured, crammed with insight and often very funny. For anyone interested in how literature works, and why it matters, they are vital reading.

• Introduction 1: Lists 2: Timing 3: Timeliness 4: Beasts 5: A rehearsal of Hamlet 6: Kafka's relations 7: French as a literary medium 8: Inferno 32 and 33 9: Primo Levi 10: Godforsakenness 11: Poems and translations

Eric Griffiths is Fellow in English at Trinity College, Cambridge and Lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Printed Voice of Victorian Poetry (Clarendon Press, 1989) and co-editor of Dante in English (Penguin, 2005).Freya Johnston is University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow in English at St Anne's College, Oxford. She is the author of Samuel Johnson and the Art of Sinking, 1709-1791 (Oxford University Press, 2005), general editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Novels of Thomas Love Peacock (Cambridge University Press, 2016-) and co-editor of Jane Austen's Teenage Writings (Oxford World's Classics, 2017).

Eric Griffiths used to deliver his lectures quickly, but I suggest you read them slowly. The 10 collected here in If Not Critical about some of the writers closest to his heart - Dante, Shakespeare, Racine, Primo Levi, Samuel Beckett - are richly textured, crammed with insight and often very funny. For anyone interested in how literature works, and why it matters, they are vital reading.

• Introduction 1: Lists 2: Timing 3: Timeliness 4: Beasts 5: A rehearsal of Hamlet 6: Kafka's relations 7: French as a literary medium 8: Inferno 32 and 33 9: Primo Levi 10: Godforsakenness 11: Poems and translations