The German scholar Hermann Usener (1834–1905) made an important contribution to nineteenth-century scholarship in the fields of philology and comparative religion. In order to recreate a picture of the religions of the Greco-Roman world he drew on elements from the fields of ethnology, phenomenology and hermeneutics. This four-volume collection of essays and reviews was published posthumously in 1912–1914. Volume 1 (1912) contains essays and reviews relating to Greek philosophy, rhetoric , grammar and textual criticism. Volume 2 (1913) focuses on Latin grammar and literature. Volume 3 (1914) is devoted to Greek literary history and the history of philology, and Volume 4 (1913) contains 22 essays on the history of religion, ranging from Kallone to Chrysostom.