A companion to The Human Country: New and collected Stories, this volume collects all of Harry Mathews's non-fiction, including an astonishing range of essays which discuss everything from complex literary and musical forms to the works of Lewis Carroll, Raymond Roussel, Italo Calvino, Joseph McElroy, George Perec and the OuLiPo. Throughout the collection, Mathews examines the relationship between form and literature in a lucid, intimate voice, arguing with erudition, grace and humour for the importance of artifice.