All the essays except one on England offer sociological studies of private life in 19th-century France combined with severe critical judgments of that life.

The essays don't offer a guide to the exhibit (or the controversy), though Michael S. Roth provides one in his introduction to the book.

Another essay offers choices, including "ruminate on names and naming, your name, and your name's relationship to you."

While mentioning that there are different views on political issues like abortion and on the acceptability of cloning, the essay offers little explanation.

His essays offer "many vividly rendered interviews and vignettes," Paul Thomas wrote in these pages in 1994.

These essays offer insight into both the captivating and problematic dimensions of Ball's work, while drawing connections among his diverse writings.

But while these essays offer a highly accessible introduction to Alvarez's work, much of their substance has been better expressed in her other work.

His essays were detailed and perceptive and offer a useful musicological resource for present-day scholars of Baroque music.

Perhaps too, essays, with their reliance on the first person, offer a dangerous temptation to what Harvard's old "Handbook for English" dismissed as "fine writing."

But much as there was to marvel, the essay offered scant solace.