In this book, writer Henry James gives wonderful and probing insights into the lives and works of many famous and interesting writers, some known personally by him. We see into the creative workings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Robert Louis Stevenson, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Alphonse Daudet, Guy De Maupassant, Ivan Turgenieff and George du Maurier. (Summary by Rita Boutros)