In the second half of the last century, the teaching of English literature was very much influenced and, in some places, entirely dominated by the ideas of F. R. Leavis. What was it like to be taught by this iconic figure? How and why did one become a Leavisite? In this unique book, part memoir, part study of Leavis, David Ellis takes himself as representative of that pool of lower middle class grammar school pupils from which Leavisites were largely...