THE greater part of this book was written between September
1947 and April 1948, but it has since been revised, and, in
certain cases, brought up to date. The Introduction includes
material from my Dialogue on Actors, published in The Critic,
Spring 1947; and parts of it were summarised in the chapter on
Drama in my Reading and Criticism, published in May 1950.
Two sections of the essay on Ibsen were adapted and broadcast
as talks in the B.B.C. Third Programme in December 1949 and
May 1950. Ibsen's Non-Theatrical Plays was published in The
Listener of December 23, 1949. The essay on Yeats was com-
missioned for a volume of Focus which has not yet appeared.
The essay Criticism into Drama was rewritten for publication in
Essays in Criticism, in April 1951; I have used it here in part
in its rewritten form, since, although it repeats certain points
made elsewhere in the book, it seems to me to serve as a coherent
summary and conclusion. To the editors and similar authorities
through whom these parts of the book have been previously
published, I make grateful acknowledgment.

I have received much personal help in my work on the book
as a whole; from Mr. Wolf Mankowitz and Mr. Clifford
Collins, especially in its earlier stages; from Dr. B. L. Joseph;
from my wife; and, in the essay on Ibsen, from Mr. R. E. Keen.
I am grateful also to Mr. Bernard Miles, Mr. Nevill Coghill,
Mr. Martin Browne, and Mrs. Doris Krook, who all kindly
discussed my account of contemporary acting, in a very full and
interesting correspondence. I have tried to take notice of those
of their points with which I could agree, and am much indebted
to them. The help which I have received from published
sources is very wide; I have tried to make all such obligations
plain in my text.

R. W.

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