Published when he was thirty-three, The Broken Estate is the first
book of essays by the man who would become one of America's most
esteemed literary critics. Ranging in subject from Jane Austen to John
Updike, this collection introduced American readers to a new kind of
humanist criticism. Wood is committed to judging literature through its
connection with the soul, its appeal to our appetites and identities,
and he examines his subjects rigorously, without ever losing sight of
the mysterious human impulse that has made these works valuable to
generations of readers.