Scrutiny was first issued quarterly from Cambridge between 1932 and 1953, the principal editor throughout being Dr Leavis. It is now recognized as a formative influence on English intellectual and cultural life worthy to rank with the great reviews of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This reissue is of the 1963 combined set, including a final volume containing an important Retrospect by Dr Leavis and a substantial analytical index. Scrutiny offers an almost complete critical history of English literature from Chaucer to the mid-twentieth century. Medieval literature, Shakespeare, the seventeenth-century poets, Pope, Dryden, Johnson, the great romantics, the Victorians, and nearly all the important modern writers are seriously examined. Many of the articles have become classics, and resulted in revisions of previously accepted views. An important feature of Scrutiny, still of great interest, is the book review section, where many of the important books of the time, and some of the pretentious ones too, were reviewed as they appeared.

Table of Contents:
Volume 17 No. 1 Spring, 1950: Mr Eliot and Social Biology L.A Cormican; James's Debt to Hawthorne (III): The American Problem Marius Bewley; 'The Windhover' F.N Lees; The Novel as Dramatic Poem (IV): 'St. Mawr', by F.R Leavis; Correspondence: Leon Edel and Marius Bewley; Comments and Reviews; Sin and Soda, The Cocktail Party, by T.S. Eliot, reviewed by John Peter; The American People, by Henry Bamford Parkes, reviewed by Marius Bewley; Wyatt and the Scholars, The Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt, The Poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt, Silver Poets of the Sixteenth Century, reviewed by H.A. Mason; Palisades of Fear, by Ronald Bottrall, reviewed by Peter Lienhardt; English Art, 1307–1461 Joan Evans, reviewed by Peter Ferriday; Volume 17 No. 2 Summer, 1950: Appearance and Reality in Henry James Marius Bewley; James's 'What Maisie Knew': A Disagreement F.R. Leavis; Correspondence re 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'; John Marston's Plays John Peter; The 'Doctor Faustus' of Thomas Mann D.J. Enright; Reviews; Theory and Criticism: English Poetry: a Critical Introduction, by F.W. Bateson, reviewed by F.R.G. Cox; Sire Gauvain et le Chevalier Vert, reviewed by John Speirs; Art Books For All, reviews by Geoffrey Walton; Academic Criticism Today, Shakespeare's Problem Plays and English Drama from Early Times to the Elizabethans, reviewed by Derek Traversi; Volume 17 No. 3 Autumn, 1950: Medieval Idiom in Shakespeare: (I) Shakespeare and the Liturgy L.A. Cormican; The Novel as Dramatic Poem (V): 'Women in Love' (I) F.R. Leavis; 'Wynnere and Wastoure' and 'The Parlement of the Thre Ages' John Speirs; Correspondence: 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' Again Q.D. Leavis; Maisie, Miles and Flora, the Jamesian Innocents: A Rejoinder by Marius Bewley; Comments and Reviews; What Oft was Thought..., The Meaning of Beauty by Eric Newton and Aesthetics and History by Bernard Berenson, reviewed by Geoffrey Walton; Victorian Journalism, The Story of the Pall Mall Gazette, by J.W. Robertson Scott, reviewed by R.G. Cox; Social Anthropology, Past and Present, Note by D.F. Pocock; Symposium on Mr Eliot's 'Notes' (III) D.F. Pocock; Who are the English Baroque Poets?, Poetry and Humanism by M.M. Mahood, reviewed by Geoffrey Walton; Volume 17 No. 4 March, 1951: Roger North and Political Morality in the Later Stuart Period T.A. Birrell; Medieval Idiom in Shakespeare (II): Shakespeare and the Medieval Ethic L.A. Cormican; The Novel as Dramatic Poem (V): 'Women in Love' (II) F.R. Leavis; Correspondence: The Relation between William and Henry James Marius Bewley; Comments and Reviews; Aspects of Modern American Poetry, Focus Number Five: Modern American Poetry, reviewed by Marius Bewley; What is Background? The Enchanted Glass by Hardin Craig, reviewed by L.A. Cormican; Anthropology and the Lay Reader, Male and Female by Margaret Mead, reviewed by D.F. Pocock.