Volume 2 of A Selection from Scrutiny opens with Mrs Leavis's much quoted studies, which together form 'A Critical Theory of Jane Austen's Writings'. There follows a section of reviews of novelists (Dorothy Richardson, Gissing, Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Henry James), and Mrs Leavis's study of Edith Wharton. Then there are three of James Smith's essays: the celebrated 'Preliminary Survey' of Wordsworth; the equally celebrated 'On Metaphysical Poetry' and the study of As You Like It. A section on 'The English Tradition' reprints studies of Jefferies, Beatrice Webb, Sturt and Piers Plowman.