The volume demonstrates Lang's central position in the literary culture of his day. It includes the most important examples of his literary journalism, his historical and his biographical writing. In these works, Lang engages with the most important literary critical issues of the period - whether the novel is entertainment or art, the professionalization of writing, the function of fiction and criticism - and writes on some of the central literary figures of the century such as Tennyson, Dickens and Zola. In his writings on Scotland, history and biography too the selected work shows not only the complexity and inter-disciplinary nature of his own thought but illuminates contemporary debates on the nature of genius, on national identity and on historical method.