This highly useful series presents substantial excerpts from the best criticism on the major literary figures and nonfiction writers, including novelists, poets, playwrights and literary theorists, of 1900 to 1999 – the era most frequently studied in high schools.

Each volume presents overviews of four to eight authors with chronologically arranged criticism representing the entire range of response to each author. A typical excerpt is prefaced by an annotation that explains the critics reputation and critical philosophy and providing a synopsis of the excerpt. Approximately 90-95% of critical essays are full text.

Every fourth volume is a Topics volume covering major literary movements, trends and other topics. Volumes include author, nationality, topic and title indexes; a cumulative title index to the entire series is published separately.