Casting a wide net …

… Book Review: Lives of the Novelists - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The model for this book is Samuel Johnson's famous "Lives of the Poets" (1779-81), where the eminent essayist, who considered that a chief part of the interest of literature is biographical, surveyed a century of English poets and provided a critical model for generations of scholars. Mr. Sutherland usually adheres to Johnson's practice: biography first, criticism second—though he departs from it whenever he pleases.