This series was initiated within the Cambridge University Press in the late 1960s, as an at first untitled collection of general critical studies. For convenience it was referred to inside the Press as ‘the Major European Authors series’, and once the prejudice against the useful cliché ‘major’ was overcome, the phrase became the official title.

The series was meant to be informal and flexible, and when the books are commissioned no strict guidelines are imposed. The aim has always been to provide critical studies which can justifiably be given a title which starts with the name of the author and is then not too seriously qualified by the subtitle: therefore to be introductory, general and accessible. When the series started the general assumptions were ‘New Critical’; there was a strong disinclination to start from a biographical, or even from a more general literary–historical, approach. The general aim was and still is to address the works of the author directly as literature or drama, and to try to give a sense of the structure and effect of novels and poetry, or the way drama works with an audience. More specifically, writers of these studies guide the reader through the whole ceuvre, being willing to make judgements about importance and quality by selecting which works to dwell on. Readers are helped to form direct impressions by being given liberal quotation and judicious analysis.