This portrait-in-the-round of the greatest master of literature of the twentieth century, James Joyce, is the work of many pioneering critics whose familiarity with the man and whose insights into his art make their words uniquely knowledgeable, fresh, and compelling. "James Joyce: Two Decades of Criticism" has proved particularly revealing to the general reader, indispensable to the Joyce scholar, and a rich source book to the student of the development of contemporary literature. It makes available the remarkable essay of T. S. Eliot, the intimate portraits of Jolas and Budgen, the first appearance of Hugh Kenner's Joyce study, the evocative Dublin panorama of Vivian Mercier. Here they are with bias, bite, wit, spontaneity, and integrity -- seventeen critics from Joseph Campbell to Edmund Wilson -- a one-volume library of critical acumen that probes the work of a great artist. -- From publisher's description.