The volume contains nine essays by Scottish novelist, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894). Two essays concern French poets from the Late Middle Ages - Charles of Orleans and François Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker – while one profiles Yoshida-Torajiro (1830 - 1859), one of Japan's most distinguished intellectuals in the late years of the Tokugawa shogunate. There are essays about Victor Hugo, Robert Burns, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau: His Character and Opinions. The final two essays focus on Samuel Pepys and John Knox and Women. The studies are ‘familiar’ in the sense of being informal or conversational in style. They attempt to bring their subjects to life, looking at the books from the standpoint of an engaged reader rather than a scholarly critic. Published by Collins Clear-Type Press. Undated. Good condition with dust jacket. Binding intact apart from spine cracking at front flyleaf.