Richard Altick. The Scholar Adventurers. 1950.

An effort to make literary scholarship seem dangerous

Altick does his best to romanticize the scholars who happened upon or sought out documents pertaining to pre-twentieth century British and American authors, mostly British. The book was enchanting enough, though I still remain unexcited. The canon is slipping, despite the efforts of those who pursued the lost documents of Byron, Malory, Burns, Shelley, et. al. The whole project of reconstucting the personal lives of long-deceased authors makes me slightly uneasy, especially when the quest is purely for biographical data. Their literature should be important for what it can offer us, not for its reflection of the writer's secrets. In any event, fifty-six years later I'm glad this book exists, because it does shed some light on English studies, offers a sort of introduction to some key literary figures, and because it is well-written enough to be engaging, if not as thrilling as its author assumes.