As a writer, scholar, critic, teacher, bibliophile, and publisher, Matthew J. Bruccoli had immeasurable impact on American literary scholarship and history over the past half century. In his more than one hundred published books, Bruccoli demonstrated a rare model of scholarship based on tenacious research, passionate intensity, and encyclopedic knowledge of his subjects. He brought this same spirited mode of inquiry to his essays as well. On Books and Writers brings together thirty of Bruccoli's best short pieces from journals, anthologies, and other publications to illustrate in a single volume the remarkable range and enduring contributions of this accomplished man of letters.