Have the reports of the author's death been greatly exaggerated? When Roland Barthes famously announced the death of the author, he heralded a major new debate in modern literary criticism and aesthetics. This volume is a dialogical collection of key essays discussing the nature of authorship and the place, if any, of authorial intention in the interpretation of literary texts. Including seminal essays by Barthes and Foucault, along with other previously published and newly commissioned contributions, this collection examines the philosophical underpinnings and arguments of both sides of the debate.